


Blank Pages

by axolotlNerd



Category: Game Grumps, Skyhill (Band), Starbomb (Band), The Northern Hues (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Books, Car Accidents, Depression, Don't worry they'll be happy eventually, F/M, Flashbacks, Hospitalization, I promise, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It's not that complicated tho, Major Character Death but they're dead from the start so???, Not soon, Slow Burn, but eventually, there's a lot going on here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9572948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotlNerd/pseuds/axolotlNerd
Summary: A boy has been left in his world with a secret he’s forced to manage to keep. Through the pain of grief, he must try to survive in his new, and now empty, world. While trying to do so, he finds someone that turns his dark world into the adventure of a lifetime.A girl has been hit by a car and then found on the side of the road, a mere ghost of what she was. With only the words of books she’s read at her disposal, she gains a new name, Rain, a new face, albeit scarred, and even a new life. Something just won’t let go, though.There’s just one problem for the pair; sometimes, you get the chance to start over. To run away from all the bad things that you were. To forget the things that you hated, not only about yourself, but the rest of your life. How do you return to who you were then when who you are now is so much better? And how do you leave all that was behind?How do you run away from the one thing that will never, ever, let go?





	1. This Song Will Save Your Life - Leila Sales

The pages of the book I held in my hands were thin. I remember thinking that as I flipped through the pages, checking to see if it was my style of reading. I don’t remember what it was that made me like it, but I checked it out from the local library. 

The truth is, I’ve read more books than you. Trust me. Name it, I’ve read through each word a thousand times, and I will a million more. It doesn’t matter how many you have read. I read in the rain, the snow, at work, before bed, and sometimes even in dreams, I hold my favorite books in hand. I still remember them, somehow. Out of all the things that got left behind, they were kept in peace.

I  _ do  _ remember the librarian, surprisingly. She was an old woman, with gray hair that probably bounced at her shoulders. Old ladies like her usually don’t have long hair, and I assumed that even if the image was blurry. I forgot her first name because everyone always called her Ms. Fig. I did too, I think. She loved children but never had any of her own. I forgot why. 

She recommended me to the first book that I really enjoyed. It was  _ The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy _ , and I had just come to the library with someone else. I don’t remember who, and I forgot how I met Ms. Fig, but I was young. She told me she knew of a book I would like and helped me get a library card. She let me sign my name on it, but the messy and childish writing has since been washed away. 

I had just checked out a new book, though. It was called  _ This Song Will Save Your Life _ , and I remember thinking I was way too old to be reading these kinds of books. I don’t remember what kind it was, though. 

_ “Wait.”  _ The button’s speakers said. It was one of those crosswalk buttons, but it said  _ “Wait.” _ again every five seconds and it made a loud and obnoxious beep as soon as the white walking signal popped up. 

When I heard that loud, obnoxious beep, I started walking, my eyes still glued to the pages. I was somehow enthralled, feeling fascinated with the range of emotions that had sparked up only twenty pages in. The main character was so  _ human _ , it was exhilarating. 

But then everything went blank, disappearing in a moment’s time as ringing sounded out, blaring in my ears.

 

It was too bright when I opened my eyes. I gasped out, reaching to cover my eyes, but only feeling a sharp pain from my arm as it lifted up, revealing it was in a cast. 

_ How did I break my arm? Is this the hospital? _ I wondered, trying to think of what happened, how I got here. 

But there was  _ nothing _ . 

No name, no parents, no friends. Not even an address came to mind. I started breathing heavy, panicking. Why couldn’t I remember? What happened? 

_ 4 Pivot Drive? _ My mind answered. I shook the answer from my brain, knowing that’s not where I lived. That was from  _ Harry Potter _ , wise-ass brain. But that was an answer, the fact that I knew that address, the fact that I knew the book it was from. 

I remembered the books. I had one earlier. What was it? Oh, yeah. A cheesy teenage romance, I thought. But there were more important things to attend to. I didn’t need to remember  _ Harry Potter _ ’s legacy, I needed mine. 

“Hello? Where am I?” I asked. Right on cue, a doctor looked over to me. I hadn’t noticed him before, somehow. He stared at me with intense eyes, then sighed. 

“You’re awake. How do you feel?” He asked. I stuttered, not really knowing. I felt like the air was really thick, like I was trying to swim. The lights still felt too bright. 

“Did I die? Is this heaven?” I asked in return. I looked to him, observing how the sunlight bounced off of his skin, making him merely a dark silhouette in from of the window. “Are you an angel?” I asked, thoroughly confused. I don’t think I had ever been particularly religious, but it seemed like death was knocking on my door. He laughed.

“Fortunately, no. I’m just a doctor, but thank you. You’re in the hospital right now.” Even though that’s what I’d originally assumed, I still felt a little shocked. 

“Well… What happened?” I stuttered out. 

“We don’t exactly know. The man that found you is still a little shaken up, hasn’t talked to us about it yet.” The doctor answered. Suddenly, the beeping of a heart monitor rang in my ears, the noise seeming to have taken a while to reach my ears. Now that it had, it rang loudly and almost painfully in my head. I moved my not-broken arm to cover up an ear, even if it didn’t help much. It still felt sore and awkward, though.

“Who? Could he come in?” I was quick to ask this, wanting to know why I didn’t remember my name, what happened… 

Nothing but the books. 

 

It seemed like only minutes later when the doctor came back into the bright room, another man behind him. I looked at him, not sure what I was feeling as I saw his face. 

His dark curls were massive, almost as big as his head. He had worried and wide brown eyes, and his skin was pale. As soon as his eyes met mine, color flooded into him as he sighed with relief. He was taller than I thought people could be, but he was thin as a stick and looked like a gentle person in general. 

“Hi.” He said, somewhat awkwardly. “I’m Dan.” He waved, feeling small, as was evident from the way he held himself. I waved back, not really knowing how to reply. I was nameless right now. Plus, what do you say to the person that possibly knew you  _ before _ everything went dark?

Nothing. 

He sat down in a chair, just staring at me. I stared back but eventually turned to look out of the window. Storm clouds had started brewing in the distance, ominously crawling their way towards the hospital. I must have been staring for a long time because soon I heard Dan speaking again. 

“What… What happened? Do you remember?” He asked. I turned to him to see him fiddling idly with his hands, looking down.

“I… I was reading. Crossing the street…?” I said this as if I was asking myself, slowly and carefully. Something inside of me knew I was treading on thin ice. Like the wall might crumble if I wasn’t careful;

“Really?” He sounded curious. “You were crossing the highway and reading a book at the same time?” 

“No, I don’t think I was on the highway. There was a crosswalk.” I said this more confidently, remembering the loud  _ “Wait.” _ coming from the streetlight. 

“Well… I found you on the side of the highway last night…” He spoke calmly, wondering if he was treading on the same ice I was. “You looked really fucked up, no offense.”

“What… What else…?” I couldn’t finish my sentence, though. He knew. 

“I just saw a bit of blood on the road, so I pulled over to look around, and then…” He trailed off, still a little shaken up. “Your arm! How is it? It was… Bad, to say the least. And I don’t know if you saw it already, but you had to get stitches on your forehead from a really bad gash.” He pointed to the area right around my eyebrow, making me lightly touch it as feel a sting. 

“Ow…” I muttered. 

“You match me, though!” He said, a genuine smile on his face as he pointed to a scarred eyebrow that was raised in amusement. I remembered that, somewhere, I read that smiling made people like you better. That wasn’t the reason that I smiled back, though. Where did I read that? 

The book I’d been reading.  _ This Song Will Save Your Life _ . Who was it by? I strained to remember, the name popping into my head.  _ Leila Sales _ . I thought of the book, vivid images of what I’d imagined while reading running through my head. I could think of the shows the main character, Elise, watched. I could feel the songs she listened to as close to my tongue as my breath, but I couldn’t sing them. My ears started ringing as I pictured, not the house Elise lived in, but the road I was walking on as I read it. There was sound, but I couldn’t remember what it was. A scream? No, it wasn’t a- 

_ God, that ringing! Make it stop! _ I screamed at myself, grabbing my ears and writhing in pain as the sound made my head throb. I whined, and could’ve sworn I was muttering to myself as I gripped at my head. Another sound tuned in. 

“...Okay? What’s happening?” Dan’s scared voice tuned in. I looked at him, managing to see him through my pain. The sound faded, though the pain stayed as I held myself.

“I- What happened? God, my  _ head _ …” I spoke quietly, feeling fragile. Dan had a hand on my shoulder, looking worried. 

“Jesus, this day has been absolutely crazy…” He mumbled. 

“I think I might have remembered something, though,” I said this mostly to myself, but Dan still tuned in. “Just before everything blanked out. There was a… A scream?” I strained myself to remember, but it was fading fast. “No, more like a  _ screech _ , like styrofoam on styrofoam, but, multiplied by ten.” I described quickly, trying to keep it in my brain as long as I could. 

“I would assume that means you got hit by a car.” Dan offered. I looked at him, confused.  _ What does the screech have to do with that? _ I wondered. He seemed to read my mind. “That screech could have been the tires, trying to stop.” I nodded. 

“It must have been.”  _ But how did I get on the highway?  _ The question hung in the air, unwilling to be answered by either of us. 

And the silence stuck with it. 

 

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Dan finally said. I hadn’t noticed, but I had turned back to look at the storm clouds that continued their unpromising march forwards, crawling closer and closer every second. I turned to him, looking at him softly. “Do you remember your name?” He asked. 

I shook my head somberly. 

“Well… How about, until you remember it, we can give you a different name? A nickname or something, just so I know what to call you?” 

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” Maybe that’s what I needed. Maybe if I had a name, I would feel a bit better. Maybe it would help me remember, help thoughts come to me clearer. 

“Do you have any ideas?” 

The rain started tapping on the windows gently, diverting my attention again and making me think. I just stared at the slate sky, knowing that if the sun hadn’t been covered, it would’ve been shedding the whole city in warm yellow light. But instead, clouds brought us this. It may have looked gloomy, but it felt peaceful. 

“Do you like the rain?” Dan asked after another period of silence. 

“I think I did,” I said, leaning onto the wall and not looking over. 

“That’s what I should call you, then.” He said. “I’ll call you Rain.” I turned to him, a somberly quizzical look on my face.

“How often do you plan on talking to me?” A part of me felt sad asking this. Dan’s company was nice, but he wouldn’t stick around. I knew that. I’d probably either get kicked out of the hospital once I got better, or stuck into a ward where people who’s brains were too fucked up for them to leave. I didn’t have any place to go if I left, as I didn’t know where my house or apartment was.

But to my surprise, Dan looked shocked after I said this. Almost offended. 

“You don’t remember anything! I wouldn’t just leave you here after finding you hit by a car and left on the side of the street like roadkill! I’ll come back anytime I can until you remember, and if you have to leave before you remember, then I’ll help you find some place to stay, even if it’s just my couch or something.” He rambled. I looked at him as he spoke, his hands doing gestures as he looked at everything except for me. 

When he finally did look at me, though, he saw tears piling up in my eyes. He looked a little worried and spoke again, seeming more panicked.

“Are you hurt? Did I say something wrong? Are you okay?” He asked quickly. 

“No! I-I mean, yes, I just… That’s really sweet of you, but…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish my own sentence. “I think that’s the nicest thing I remember anyone saying to me.” I wiped my eyes, trying to stop my tears. It was silent for a beat. 

“Is it too soon to joke about that?” He asked, a little laugh at the end. I started laughing, too, but an ache from my ribcage made me tone it down to a giggle after stifling a small  _ ‘Ow’ _ . 

 

After a while, Dan ended up having to go and “Record”. I didn’t ask what he meant, I just assumed that maybe he was an actor or something that I hadn’t heard of or forgot. I laid down on the bed, letting my bruised and broken body rest from talking. 

And I just thought. 

The names of all the books I’d read kept coming up in my head. I could remember them so vividly. Why not anything else? Were they really so important?

“Where was the book I had when I was hit?” 

The question came to me so suddenly, even I was surprised when I wondered out loud. The doctor, who I’d forgotten was in the room and checking the machinery around me, looked at me with question. 

“That book? I believe that the young man that brought you here brought the book, too.” He said. He opened a drawer on the nightstand, pulling out the book but hesitating as he handed it to me. I didn’t know why until it was held out to me, the plastic cover that had protected the hardcover practically in shreds. Blood stained it, making the pages stick together. I just held it.

_ That’s my blood. That’s life force outside of my body, staining the pages of this book. That’s me.  _ My thoughts bothered me as they scanned through my head, making my skin feel like it was being poked at with a needle.

I opened the book to the last page of the first chapter, trying to read it through the dark red that stained it. Oddly, I acknowledged how mad Ms. Fig would be. She would understand once she heard the story, though, I’m sure. 

The only words I could make out was one of the last, where it had barely been spared as pebbles had lodged themselves into the paper. Page 21.

 

_ “You think it’s so easy to change yourself, but it’s impossible. _

_ So I decided on the next logical step:” _

 

And the rest was blood.


	2. Hatchet - Gary Paulsen

It was so empty. For a highway in California, it was just practically abandoned. The new moon made the world even darker than it would have been on a normal and empty night. The world felt so ominous, it almost made my skin crawl beneath my clothes as I drove, just looking at the road ahead of me. I just thought, wondering what I was even  _ doing _ driving this early in the morning. 

Oh. Yeah.

It was another night terror. I remembered my eyes flying open, but my body unable to move. I tried my best, but it felt like gravity was bearing down on me harder than it used to. Figures moved in the dark room, looking at me. Reaching forwards like death trying to claim me, and then-

I screamed. 

And cursed Barry for being away and not here to comfort me. 

But whatever. I thought if I could go out for a drive I’d feel better, maybe it would calm me down. I turned out to be wrong, as the sitting there probably only made my jumpiness worse. 

_ Is that blood in the road? _ I suddenly asked myself as the car hurriedly came towards a glistening dark red liquid that had fallen off the pavement and a little ways away. I tried to convince myself it was probably some animal that got hit and then limped away, but my unsettled brain wouldn’t let me be calm. 

So I pulled over. I got out of my car, unnaturally curious and scared of what I would find. The red lights that stayed shining from the running car hit something as it glowed with the same red, reflecting the light.

It was the plastic that I’d noticed first. Shards of a thicker piece in one spot, smashed by something heavy befalling it. It looked like a card, but there was no name on it. There were also shreds of thinner plastic, which seemed to have come from a protective cover, like the ones on hard-cover books in libraries, maybe? Speaking of books, there was one on the ground, the cover torn apart, just as I’d thought. 

How I hadn’t seen her until that moment, I don’t know. I just know that when I had seen her, I’d never un-see it. She was so still, I thought she was dead. I screamed, not knowing what to do. My hands ran through my hair, quickly getting tangled in it. I could hear the blood pulsing in my ears and on the back of my neck- 

_ That’s it, check for a pulse. _ I quickly did so, feeling a faint and slow pump from the veins in her neck. Quickly, I called 911. 

“Uh, yeah, I just found a girl on the-the side of the highway, she… She’s really hurt. We need an ambulance!” I said, panic settling in quickly. The person on the other line just said something about “We’ll be there as soon as possible.” before asking about my location and hanging up. I looked back at the girl on the ground. 

Her arm was bent awkwardly and obviously painfully. The bone might have even snapped in half, as the angle was so… Drastic. I heard her groan, wracked with pain and grief.

“Hello?! Hello, miss, can you talk? Don’t move, you’ll hurt yourself, th-there’s an ambulance on the way, don’t worry…” I rambled. I wondered if these words were more to comfort me. 

 

The string of words that she let out was all too familiar to me.

 

Then she just groaned again, looking up at me with pleading eyes.

Then they rolled back and shut. 

I wanted to scream again, but I couldn’t. I was too panicked and scared to even touch the girl, let alone try to help her with that gash on her head, and then-

 

Next thing I know, it’s daylight, and I’m in the waiting room of a hospital, wanting to pace around again. I forced myself to be still, finding that fumbling with my hands somewhat satiated the need to move. 

God, everything had been so turned around and fucked up. The dreams, sleep paralysis, and… 

Yeah. Definitely everything.

I sighed, putting my head in my hands, wanting to whine out in frustration. I must look like I haven’t slept in weeks. Actually, that’s true. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since  _ Before _ , and  _ Before _ felt like a long time ago. 

There was a tap on my shoulder. 

 

And somehow, she lived. With some God-given miracle, she lived. I saw her look to me, and as I did, I felt nervous. What would she think of me? Say? What would  _ I _ say?

But we talked. We talked and I called her Rain because she seemed so interested in it. We talked and I felt relief for the first time since  _ Before _ . We talked and we _ laughed _ . This girl, who didn’t even remember her own name minutes ago, who could have been dead had I not found her…

She  _ laughed _ . 

And I think part of me felt like crying at the release of that stress. Even the smallest release, it felt like a big step forwards. That had to have been a good thing, right?

Maybe not. Maybe I was just desperate to feel good about myself. That’s how I’d always been. Bending words to make me feel okay. Part of me wondered if I didn’t have to be that way. People can change, right? 

No. They really can’t. 

Time passed faster than I thought it would with her. Soon enough, my alarm went off, telling me I had to go. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay and make sure Rain was really okay. 

But I still forced myself to leave. I was still human, and I needed to function, no matter how badly I didn’t want to. 

I still ended up being late by 30 minutes. Arin looked at me, confused.

“You haven’t been late since-” He cut himself off when I glared at him. I didn’t want to hear him say her name. Never again. “What happened?” He continued, trying to change the subject. My look softened. 

“It’s a long story,” I replied. 

“How about after we record?” He offered. I pulled up a small smile. Somehow, he always knew how to make me feel better. 

 

And so we recorded. And I told him. And he was just as confused as me. 

“Jesus…” He muttered. “Who would just hit someone with their car and leave them there?” I agreed with him, wondering what could’ve happened. “You don’t think there’s any possibility she actually  _ does _ remember?” He asked. 

“Why would she lie?” 

“Maybe she’s some criminal mastermind. If she doesn’t remember what crime she committed, she can’t face time for it, right?” He asked. 

“No. That’s too complicated. Plus, she just had a book, nothing else. They would’ve found out about her at the hospital, too.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. The best answer is usually the easiest.” He said. I still thought, though. 

 

_ God, what was I thinking, saying all that to her? _ I cursed myself for being so nice to Rain. She would probably get well enough to leave the hospital eventually and then expect me to let her stay with me. I couldn’t have people rely on me. Not now. With the nightmares, sleep paralysis, and everything else… 

I couldn’t let myself do that to her. Life was too much of a mess to let someone get tangled up in mine. I didn’t know who Rain was before this, but that didn’t matter now. She needed someone who can really help her through all this. Not me. Not someone who would just hurt her. 

But the book that she was reading… 

_ That book. Maybe it could help. _

I don’t know why, but I thought that the book could somehow help me. The book Rain had dropped with her accident, maybe it held some sort of clue. I had gotten a whole collection of books  _ Before _ , so they must still be there somewhere, right?

I grabbed the small metal ring that hung from the ceiling from it's chain, hearing the wooden panel creak as it opened and revealed a pull-down set of steps. They were heavy, but all I had to do was grab the bottom step and put it on the ground carefully, without making much noise. 

So I went up to the attic, where everything sat plain and covered in dust. I felt guilty to leave it like this, but what else was I supposed to do? The blanket that still sat on the double bed had faded drastically from it’s previous silver-blue color, but I could tell just by looking at it that it was still just as soft as it was when I had left it there. 

How long  _ had _ it really been? Since I was last up here, with her? It must have been a really long time, if everything was actually as dirty as it looked. Or maybe it had just gotten old. Her memory had, and they say that one’s house is much like one’s own soul. 

When I finally pulled myself away from my thoughts, I realized that I was sitting on the bed. I jumped up, smoothing out the dent where I’d sat. I wanted to keep this place as clean as possible, keep it neat for her. It’s least I could do. 

I looked to the nightstand next to the bed, seeing the envelope that sat there, free of the dust and dirt the rest of the cold attic had collected. The writing on the was so neat, written in such a calm and wonderfully cursive hand that it hurt to look at. It was too familiar. Too soon. 

I still hadn’t opened it. It must have been months since it was written. October? September? That sounded right. The days had become such a blur. 

_ And I won’t open it now. _ I decided, not wanting to look at it. I already knew enough about what she thought of me, she made that perfectly clear with what she did. She didn’t need to tell me what I already knew, especially since she was already gone.

Again, I pulled away from my thoughts and found myself with a cardboard box in my hands, looking through the books that were so neatly organized on a small bookshelf. I picked through them, wondering if that book was there. She liked books like that, right? Cheesy teen romance novels, she collected them, I remembered. 

_ Remember _ , it’s a weird word. Rain couldn’t. But that was all I could do. It was just one of the fading things I had left of her. Books, a bed, and memories. 

And that note. 

The book wasn’t there, so instead I grabbed a different one. It was called  _ “Hatchet” _ , and the book looked older and more beat up than I thought any book she owned was. I carefully opened the paper cover, looking at the blank space that would have been there. Instead, there was a note that read in cursive writing. 

 

_ “I’m so glad you liked the book! _

_ I hope that this novel starts you _

_ on your path to becoming a  _

_ wonderful writer and a smart _

_ reader. Remember that you can  _

_ only be a good writer if you  _

_ learn from others. _

_ Love,  _

_ Mrs. Egan.” _

 

In the corner, there was small writing that said “3rd Grade”. I smiled, closing the book and walking back down the stairs after filling the cardboard box with some other books. I noticed as I pushed the wooden panel back up the door was opening, and soon enough, Barry walked in. He had gone out last night to visit his brother and some of his other friends. He looked at me quizzically, knowing that I hadn’t been up there in months. He didn’t ask, though, and I walked back to my room silently, just carrying the box of books,  _ “Hatchet” _ sitting on the top of them. 

I ended up just laying down on my bed and reading. I read until the sun went down, and when I finished that book, I was sure it must be on it was back up. I closed it, thinking about everything that had just happened. That kid was there for so long, but it felt like it had only been a week. It felt like I’d been laying in that bed for a week, too. 

But it had been just a mere… 9 hours? Yup. _ Jesus Christ, _ I thought,  _ does time really pass that fast? _ I just sighed, standing up to look out my window. 

The moon hung low in the sky, the fullness of it turning a bright, blood red. The stars were oddly bright, especially for the fact there was so much light pollution in the area. You could even see an arm of the Milky Way reaching itself to hold the bleeding moon in its grasp. Rose fingertips of the sun barely grazed the horizon, making its journey to reach the vast ocean of sky and bring the day back to us. I remembered someone saying that the “Golden Hour” was getting close to us. 

I turned back, hoping maybe I could spare at least one hour of sleep before maybe going to visit Rain. She might appreciate some of the books I had brought down from the attic, she seemed like a person who would like to read. I mean, she would have  _ died _ holding onto that book, and not even figuratively.  _ She actually could have died. You’ve saved someone’s life. _

I told this to myself as I thought back, remembering the drive, the blood, the 911 call… Even the dream I had before leaving the house. It was all too clear.

But thinking about it wouldn’t make me feel better. It would only make it worse, and I knew this all too well. So I shifted in my bed, looking back to the book I had just finished. Sunlight peeked through a window’s curtains, making a small ray of light shine down on the book as I just laid there and thought. Something I hadn’t been able to do in a while. 

_ What if Rain actually is going to be well enough to leave? What do I do for her? I should probably let her crash here, shouldn’t I? That’d be the nice thing to do. But what about everything that’s happened? Happening? Do I just hide that from her?  _

Secrets were something I’d learned to hide well, weren’t they? That’s probably not good. Again, I sighed and looked to the book, wondering if it had an answer somewhere in between the lines. Maybe an answer as to why everything had to happen so fast.

_ "No, not secrets so much as just the Secret. What he knew and had not told anybody, what he knew about his mother that had caused the divorce, what he knew, what he knew--- the Secret." _

I shut the book.  _ Bullshit, _ I thought, feeling my stomach flip as I thought of what that meant.  _ So I just hide it from her? Or act like nothing ever happened? _

But maybe that’s how it was meant to be.


	3. Where The Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls

Just as fast as I had started that book, it ended. Somehow, through the pages that were now brittle with dead blood cells, I read it. It made me feel sad even to hold the book, as it felt like the only memory it served was the fact I had lost the rest of them.

Well, not the _rest_ , per say. Just most. I remembered the books, and weird little bits of memory kept coming back. They were so unimportant that I wondered why they came back. Why did I need to remember when I traded Pokemon cards with my friends in elementary school? Who knows at this point.

That didn’t stop me from cherishing every memory that came back. I even asked if I could have a notebook to write it all down in, and the best the doctors could do was a small notepad. It was enough to write on, though, and that’s what mattered.

On the notepad, I wrote down every little thing that came back. I wrote down the happy memories on the closest page, and whenever sad ones came up, I flipped the notepad over so it was only on the back sides of the pages. Once I finished writing them, I returned to the book until I had finished it.

Reading turned out to be an extremely hard task. With my head having been knocked around just a little too much, The words kept falling in and out of focus, and past the waves of headaches I kept having to fight off, I kept finding that my eyes had just passed over a whole paragraph without me actually having read it. I could have asked for painkillers, but a strange mix of pride and determination found itself holding me back from mentioning it.

Writing was even harder. It took every ounce of my concentration just took keep my eyes focused on the page, and my mind kept forgetting what word to write next. Technically I wasn’t allowed to be reading or writing, though, so I didn’t complain.

Even _talking_ was hard, and I’m sure any person without medical knowledge would have thought I’d been born yesterday. I found myself clenching my teeth in rage half the time when just trying to say I wanted water because the words just wouldn’t form.

The nurses and doctor were all super patient, though. They just smiled and did their best to understand, and when they did, they were super nice about my frustrations.

But still, I felt like an idiot. I knew the words I wanted to say. _“I want water.”_ I knew how to say them so perfectly, almost as if I were breathing. _“I want water.”_ The sentence was as familiar to my lips as my breath is my tongue, but it wouldn’t come out. And when the phrase finally did find it’s way out of my mouth, it was broken and slow. “Waaateeer?” _Eat a bag of dicks, brain._ I told myself, cursing my concussed mind and it’s stumbling idiocy.

Regardless, I got my water in the end. The doctors said that as long as I was careful, that would fix itself in time. I couldn’t help but wonder if my memories would come back, too.

I knew, realistically, the answer was no. But how could I not be unrealistically optimistic? My leg had apparently been broken clean in half, but my arm was getting better and better every day. And with each new memory that came back, I knew that one day, I would have to be _me_ again, right?

That didn’t stop the fact that I had what the doctors had called Retrograde Amnesia, along with the helpful kick of Anterograde Amnesia. That didn’t stop the fact that I was badly concussed, and no one would be happy with that. That didn’t stop the fact that the only thing I could do hurt.

 

I had been attempting to read the last chapter over and over again until the door creaked open, a shy “Hello,” sounding out. I looked over to see Dan’s massive head of curls peeking through the doorway, holding a cardboard box with him.

When I saw him, I felt a smile crawl on my face. I remembered him. Not well, though. His name was absent, but his presence was still there in my mind from the faded memories of yesterday. “Uh… Sam?” I asked, trying to remember his name. He looked taken aback for a moment, but then smiled tiredly.

“No, but close. Dan. How are you doing, Rain?” He asked, putting the box on the nightstand. I remembered the name he gave me, and it filled me with happiness to hear it. I wasn’t very sure why, but I liked it.

“I’m good, thanks to you. They gave me a diagnosis.” I said. He asked me to tell him everything, so I did, starting from the moment he left and how I immediately started reading, and how I remembered the books. I explained how the doctors told me I was basically screwed over until I got better, trying to make light of the situation. And my leg was kind of fucked, but my arm was still getting better and better every day.

“That’s great!” He replied. “Not the leg. I mean, your arm. I mean- Shit,” He laughed, and I could tell it was because I was laughing. I loved his laugh more than I loved the happy memories that came back. I wondered why.

“Thank you for getting my book for me. I really appreciate it.” I said, putting the book back in the nightstand.

“Speaking of that, I brought some more. I thought you might want to read while you’re holed up here.” He said, opening the box and pulling out a couple. My eyes widened with surprise, and I immediately reached over to look at the books. So many of them were familiar. I recalled the fleeting sadness I felt when I saw _If I Stay_ , and I remember smiling constantly at _Eleanor & Park _because their happiness made me so, so happy.

Speaking of “So, So Happy”, I think that was one of the things I muttered to myself as I looked through the books, absolutely overjoyed to see them. Dan must have been so careful with them because they all looked so beautifully well taken care of. He sat there watching me look through them, a smile on his face as I held certain titles close to me.

“They’re one of the only things I remember. It was the first thing I thought of waking up here, and I _remember_ them.” I felt as giddy as a four-year-old at Christmas time, stuffing their face with cookies and pie. Dan smiled, looking happy for me.

“It’s good you remember something. Maybe they’ll help bring something back?” He suggested. I grabbed a specific one, _Where The Red Fern Grows_ , flipping through the pages. The names were so strikingly familiar that I almost wanted to start crying. “You remember that one?” He asked.

“Yes! Oh, my God, it’s about this kid and he gets these two dogs and he saw two names in a tree so he named the dogs after those names and the boy was named Old Dan-” I stopped, just laughing happily. Dan joined in.

“Why are you laughing?” He asked in between his own laughs.

“I don’t know, why are _you_?” But that only made us laugh harder. When we eventually stopped, I looked back at the book. “Old Dan and Little Ann is what he named them, but…” I tried to continue explaining the events of the book, but something was stirring inside of me. A memory, I thought. I trailed off, trying to concentrate.

“What? What happened?” He asked. I stayed silent for a moment longer before gasping, the memory suddenly coming back.

“The librarian! Ms. Fig! That was her first name, Annie! I-I was coming back from the library, and then, and then…” And just like that, it was gone. I could almost remember what happened as I was holding that book in my hand, but then it faded. Her image had been so clear in my mind, but suddenly, it was gone, leaving me with nothing but the name. _“Annie Figueroa”._

But Dan could picture it just as well as I had. He must have heard me loud and clear, evident on his stunned face. “Wait, so you remembered something?”

“Yeah, yeah, and it feels important! As soon as I can walk around again, I need to go straight there. I feel like I left something there, something that was really important to me.” Anxiousness settled in, making me feel antsy and ready to go if I wasn’t so badly injured. _“Wilson Rawls, you are my savior,”_ I thought as I looked through the pages of the book and smiling, willing a sob of joy to stay put.

“Have you remembered anything else?” Dan said. His smile fit so perfectly on his face like he had never let it leave. The stubble that was spread so evenly on his cheeks made me shudder with the sense that I had grown accustomed to it some time ago. A life before this one. I shook it off, just wanting to talk to him without that God-awful ringing sound coming back into my head. It seemed to come back whenever I remembered something that my mind didn’t want me to. Wanted gone for good.

“Nothing that major. I’ve just remembered little parts of life, like a couple moments from high-school, and I think I was in a theater program somewhere along the lines.” I reminisced, letting myself fall into a daydream as the memory came back, me walking into the theater and staring up in awe at the lights as people moved across the stage, all in sync. They danced, to what song, I’d long forgotten, but I remember the moves like it was yesterday. I smiled at the thought.

“I actually have a friend who was into theater in high school, too,” Dan said, smiling with me. I looked over at him, feeling emotions flood into me. “You’ll definitely meet him if you do end up staying with us, no pressure about that, by the way, he’s my roommate. There’re only two bedrooms, but I’ll offer up my bedroom if you need.” He said. The grin that had been plastered on my face stayed strong, because this man - no, this stranger - spoke so fondly of his friends. He spoke like he would never have changed any part of his life if he could, and I couldn’t help but admire that.

“I would take up your offer, but if I do need to stay with you, I’d just feel guilty about taking your bed, too. And if I do end up staying, I’ll walk out anytime you need me to, for privacy or whatever.” I loved this conversation. The whole positivity of every “If” was on the brink of inspiring to me. “And I’ll make sure to do as many things around the house as I can since I doubt any places would take me up on a job.”

“As long as you don’t hurt yourself,” Dan said, giving me a tired and slow blink before looking at the box of books fondly. I just watched him stare at them, curious and inquisitive.

“Hey, I’m thinking maybe you should keep the box,” I said, my eyes wondering to see where he was looking. It was nowhere specific, though, just glazing over each of the titles. He blinked up at me.

“Hmm? Why?”

“You seem really attached to them. I’d feel bad if I ended up forgetting anything.” I said. Tired eyes glazed over me with the curiosity of a doe, soft and thoughtful. Then he smiled.

“You’re really thoughtful. Like, that’s… That’s super nice of you to think of that.” He said. I wished I could look at his smile for hours, just because it was so infectious. It was almost as if when he was happy, he radiated that feeling, doing everything in his power to give that feeling to everyone around him. What it was that inspired him to do so, I didn’t think I’d ever know.

“Really. I’ll just borrow one or two to read, and then I’ll give them back when I’m finished.” I smiled back, trying to reflect the absolute happiness that Dan had. I knew I couldn’t do it the same way, though. We fell silent for a moment, with me shifting through the books, and Dan just watching. I hadn’t known at the time, but as he sat there with the eyes of a guardian angel, he promised to himself that he would never let the smile I held falter; never let me feel the same sadness that he had once felt, that he had once been helpless to stop as he watched it consume the one he loved.

“We should read together.” He said, still gazing at me with like an owl’s. I looked up at him.

“Why’s that?”

“I had a friend in highschool who got a concussion. Reading sucked for her, and I’m guessing it’s not very different for you.” He said. I shrugged, silently agreeing. “Well, I’ll read to you, then. We should read that one we talked about earlier. _Where The Red Fern Grows_?”

I nodded. He smiled as I handed the book to him, gazing at the yellow pages. “Have you ever read it?” I asked, though I could feel my voice and thoughts starting to falter and stumble over themselves like a scratched C.D.

“Nope, so I’m totally going to screw up on some words. You seem really excited about it, though, so I am too.” He looked at me once more before opening the book, flipping to the first page.

“ _When I left my office that beautiful spring day, I had no idea what was in store for me. To begin with, everything was too perfect for anything unusual to happen. It was one of those days when a man feels good, feels like speaking to his neighbor, is glad to live in a country like ours, and proud of his government. You know what I mean, one of those rare days when everything is right and nothing is wrong.”_

_Is that what it felt like? Was it a good day that everything changed? Did I know what was going to happen?_ I couldn’t be thinking like that. My thoughts were already starting to cloud, a combination of my concussion and a rapturous love for hearing Dan’s voice narrating this book, His sweet tone made the book sound like it had been written with sugar in Rawls' fingertips, He had a small smile on his face as he read the words from this book, bringing the world from words to life. What had been a fuzzy image in my mind had become a beautiful image with his mouth, painting the world in a new light. Who it was for, I didn’t know.

We sat like that for hours, reading. We laughed and made jokes, and eventually, we cried. A good cry that was well needed, us both looking at the book and saying “That’s horrible! Why would you do that?” and “That’s _so sad_!”

After we both regained our composure (though we were most definitely scarred by the ending), we had to go our separate ways. As much as “separate ways” can be, at least, with me still stuck in the hospital. That hopefully wouldn’t be for long, though.

With a small hug, he said goodbye, and I was left once more with nothing but the echoing words of Wilson Rawls floating through my head, all said sweetly by Dan’s soft voice as I fell asleep soon after.

 

_“It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”_


	4. The Pact - Jodi Picoult

And the next day, I was sitting on a bench on the sidewalk by the time Dan had come to the hospital the previous day. I had a pair of crutches leaned next to me, and I was completely alone. 

They had to tell me to go home, eventually. They told me that since I was stable enough to use crutches and I didn’t need to be on constant watch with my head the way it was, I had to go. I couldn’t really process what was happening as it did, but now I was just sitting there. On the side of the street. With nothing but a book with the words “Jodi Picoult” etched onto the front, and the title, “ _ The Pact _ ”, even smaller.

I guess I didn’t have anywhere to go. I didn’t know where Dan was, so even if he was serious about letting me stay with him, I wouldn’t have known where to go. He sounded fairly serious about it, considering we had a whole conversation of “If”s the day prior.

I could have gone to the library, if I knew the address. But I didn’t. 

I just kept sitting there, trying to think of where to go now. What could I do? I could try to find a homeless shelter, but without I.D., I don’t think they would let me in. And a hotel wouldn’t work either, as I didn’t have I.D. or money. How would I even afford food? Would I just have to sit on the street and beg? Or would I have to become a pro-

“-Rain?”  _ Thank God. _ The name rang through the air, cutting my thoughts off before they had a chance to complete themselves. I sat up straight, looking around for the person who had called to me. The image still hadn’t found itself solid in my mind, but I could remember how I thought his hair looked like a fluffy q-tip. The name found itself on the tip of my tongue, trying to pull the word  _ “Sam”  _ out of my mouth. 

“Hello?” I called out, trying to find the person that called to me. I desperately needed to see something familiar, see someone who knew me. 

“Rain! Rain?!” He called out again. I felt a strange strike of emotion every time I heard the name. I’m not sure if it was because of the panic in his voice, or the memory attached to the word. I called out again, his name finally reaching my lips.

“ _ Dan _ !” I looked around, finally finding his worried face. He turned towards me, and as soon as his eyes met mine, he started running. I pulled myself up, leaning against the green bench I had been sitting on. 

When Dan reached me, he pulled me into his arms, running his hands through my hair gently. For a moment, I didn’t even realize I had started sobbing, but when I did, I only cried harder. He just held me carefully, quietly whispering “Shh, it’s okay,” into my hair. I calmed down, eventually just trying to calm my shaking breaths. Dan didn’t say anything. 

I just stood there for a long time, holding him. He was so warm, I didn’t want to ever let go. I didn’t want to leave that warmth, because the rest of the world was so cold and harsh and unforgiving that nothing else should matter but this. Nothing but warmth and the smell of books and dust that he so carefully carried. 

“How did you find me?” I asked, knowing that this had to end eventually. He spoke quietly, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“The hospital said they discharged you, and I panicked.” He laughed to himself after speaking. I smiled, but stayed quiet.  _ This is too perfect to last, _ I thought. “Come on. I’ll let you stay at my place for as long as you need, and we’ll fix this. I promise.” 

 

With that, he helped me up, holding my book for me and leading me to his car. He talked about all of his friends, who he was surprised he hadn’t mentioned before. 

So far, my favorite was Arin and Suzy. They had fairly easy names to remember, and they sounded like good people. Dan said he was in a band with Arin, where they, and I quote, “Make songs about video game characters talking about their dicks”. He spoke so fondly of the pair of people, I couldn’t help but get the feeling this was his family. Especially with the way he smiled as he talked about their cats, Mochi and Mimi.

Another person I liked fairly fast was Brian. He was in the video game band too, but he was also in another one with Dan. He said that one made songs about a real (but still fake) person talking about his dick. Brian played a character called Ninja Brian, a psychopathic murderer ninja who’s best friends with Danny Sexbang, a sex-powered jew that wears blue spandex and a cape.

Barry seemed fun. He was seemed a little awkward, but Dan really liked making the point that he’s the coolest person on the whole planet. They were roommates, so I would definitely be seeing a lot of him. 

“And then there's fuckin’  _ Ross _ ,” Dan said, rolling his eyes dramatically. It'd turned into a joke, how much they hated him. He was really sadistic, but his wife seemed like the sweetest thing on the planet. Dan recorded a show on the internet, and one day when he was doing it on Christmas Eve, Holly had gone as far as to bring Christmas dinner to the office for him and Ross. 

Dan was so fond of his friends. He made it out like the world didn't exist before they did. I liked to think he really believed that.

Did I have any friends like that? How many people were out there, waiting for their daughter or sister or friend to come home? 

What if my memories never fully came back?

“Hey, you okay?” Dan's voice snapped me back to reality, making me realize we had parked in front of a small building. I looked over at him. 

“Yeah. Just… Thinking too much.” I said, turning to get out of the car.

After a bit of struggle with the crutches, we got into the apartment. It was very nice, with white walls that I could imagine reflected sunlight beautifully. The whole house looked so inviting, welcoming me in like a soft blanket and cup of tea on a quiet, raining afternoon. I stood there (as close as I could be to standing with crutches, at least), looking around the room. If the hospital I had woken up in three days ago wasn’t heaven, this must have been. 

Dan happily spoke to me about what we’d do for the next few days, saying how he’d try his best to make sure someone was in the house with me as much as possible, just in case my brain decided to have a fuck-up session, as he called it. He also pointed out the couch, which had been padded down and reinforced with copious amounts of pillows. He said he’d take out some blankets, too. 

He walked into his room, continuing to talk. “You can come in any time, just knock.” He explained. I felt an immediate affinity for the room, as the window was cracked slightly open and the curtains were pulled back, letting fresh air circulate and sunlight bounce free. Many things decorated his walls, the most notable items being vinyl discs from a band called Rush, a few pictures of a cartoon unicorn, and a big picture of a tree.

“Unicorn?” I asked. It was actually very pretty, with the light blues of her mane complementing the forest’s green very well. 

“Oh, shit! I forgot you probably wouldn’t know about it. It’s ‘The Last Unicorn’, and it’s this book from when I was a kid. They turned it into a movie, and these are some pictures from it.” I immediately got excited from the idea of a new book, one that I hadn’t read before. It must have been obvious, because Dan smiled widely. “And of course I’ll show you the book, but we gotta watch the movie soon. Once your brain is better and it won’t hurt your eyes.” He made sure to point out, just so I didn’t accidentally hurt myself. I smiled again.

“That sounds great.” I said, feeling a strange sense of familiarity with the feeling of him awkwardly hugging me around my crutches, the scent of books and dust once again surrounding me.

 

Since the doctor’s said that bright light would be bad for my eyes, we ended up just talking. Just like in the hospital, but this time, Dan was sprawled out on a recliner, and my whole body was engulfed with pillows and blankets, perfectly soft. 

“I’ll talk to Suzy and Holly about getting you some clothes, and there’s also Katie I could ask. I didn’t mention her.” He pointed out at my confused and concerned expression. I kept doing everything I could to memorize everything, but I still felt worried whenever I forgot something. Remembering would be the only way for me to get better, right?

“That sounds good. I can’t wait to actually meet them. They sound like good people.” I pulled the blankets into my body, favoring the soft red one that I’d gotten first. It was made of a fabric that was extremely soft, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was on a cloud.

“They’re super cool. Suzy’s got a great sense of style, so-” His voice was cut off by the front door squeaking open, then shutting with a shy voice calling out. 

“Hello?” Dan smiled, holding up a finger to say “Give me a second”. He clumsily pulled himself out of the chair while speaking.

“Hey, Bear! Did-” 

“Yes, Arin told me, what happened to her?! Is she okay?” Barry said, sounding just as confused and concerned as Dan had felt the first time he’d met me. I was surprised, to say the least. Barry hadn’t met me once, how could he be so worried?

“Yes, she’s fine, and she’s actually gotta stay with us for a while.” Dan said nervously.

“She’s here, isn’t she.” This was most definitely not a question. He already knew, no doubt. I laughed, and I could almost feel Barry’s snap to attention. He walked in behind Dan, but as soon as I saw the blue-grey eyes of him match mine… 

Everything went dark, and my ears started ringing like hell.

 

When I woke up, Barry was rambling like crazy, obviously scared. My vision blurred in and out of focus, and I couldn’t focus with the way my head was throbbing. Dan was talking. 

“-awake!” He exclaimed, his voice finally reaching my ears. “Rain? Come on, answer me. Are you okay?” I looked at his face, trying to make out his features properly. When his eyes finally came into focus, they were brimmed with tears as he breathed heavy with panic. 

“What… What happened?” I asked. Barry’s voice came into tune, though he sounded far away. Like a lone singer in an empty arena. 

“What do you mean ‘what happened’? Are you okay?” He asked, just repeating Dan’s question. He seemed almost scared to come near me, though I didn’t know why. I just looked back and forth between the two men. Dan looked back at me, putting a hand on my shoulder and making me realize I was on the floor. 

“Barry came into the room and you screamed. Like, bloody murder scream. You tried to jump off of the couch, but you fell down and then you… You were just out.” He explained. 

“How long?”

“Only like, thirty seconds. But you were completely passed out. What happened?” He asked. I looked back to Barry, but now that the vision was clearing, I could see him. 

His stormy eyes looked at me softly, and with that I felt calm, but every other part of him made me scared out of my mind. His cinnamon colored hair that grew thicker on the top of his head. His thin, pink lips. His beard that was perfectly shaven to give it just the right look of woodsy and casual. He didn’t seem like a bad person, but I couldn’t help but be completely terrified of him. He walked slowly closer to me, around the couch with soft footsteps. Walking like you would to a scared animal. In his defence, that’s probably exactly what I looked like. I forced myself to stay calm as he crouched down on the floor next to me.

“Can I hug you?” He asked. Almost as if to make sure I was real. Up until now, I had been a complete mystery. I had been a story, a myth. A passed down tale of question. I cautiously let him wrap his arms around me, and suddenly, I could breath easier. Like this small gesture had shown that whatever I had thought he was before, he was not. I rested my head on his shoulder, the tension in me completely abandoning me. 

Dan must not have realized it, but his hand still rested on the small of my back, having moved there from my shoulder and not moving. It felt like a rope, keeping me down on earth; I didn’t need it, but when I did, it sure as hell would be there.

“Are you okay now?” He asked, almost silently. 

“Yeah. Thank you. I’m- I’m sorry that happened, I have no-” By now, he had pulled away and was shushing me. 

“Don’t apologize. Whatever that was, it’s over now. If that happens again, though, we’re definitely calling the hospital again.” He said, the worry in his eyes evident. I nodded, just thinking about the feeling of breath coming in and out of my body. 

Barry rested a hand on my head, right on the edge of where my hair met my forehead. “You should get some rest. You’ve probably had a lot of stuff going on, so you should just lay down and calm down. Put on music or something. Okay?”

I nodded again, words failing me. He had just met me, and when I saw him, I shrieked and passed out. And now he was telling me I had to take care of myself. How had I been so lucky as to find these people? People that were so open to me so quickly? Worried for my sake?

Maybe that’s how fate wanted it played out. Maybe some strange force beyond me knew what I’d been through before this, and wanted to take care of me now. Wanted something special and new. If I could have, I would have known it wouldn’t always be like this. But as of now, it was all I’d ever known. The happiest days of my life where the only ones I could remember.

But maybe that was how it should have stayed. Maybe I should have stayed in those three days, filled with only the promises of happiness. Maybe I should have stayed Rain, the girl who could not remember who she was, but still loved nonetheless. 

But I couldn’t.

No matter how badly it would hurt to find me again, I knew things wouldn’t be right for me to stay like this. I had to repay Dan and Barry for all the love and kindness they’d shown in only three days. I had to find the friends and family that missed their girl. I couldn’t be as selfish of a person to have all this happiness to myself, whatever it was. 

So I found myself laying on the couch,  _ “The Pact” _ neatly held in my hands, opened to a page that was blank to my mind as I thought.

When I finally focused back in, interrupting my thoughts, I started reading.

 

_ “How could he convey to someone who'd never even met her the way she always smelled like rain, or how his stomach knotted up every time he saw her shake loose her hair from its braid? How could he describe how it felt when she finished his sentences, turned the mug they were sharing so that her mouth landed where his had been? How did he explain the way they could be in a locker room, or underwater, or in the piney woods of Maine, but as long as Em was with him, he was at home?”  _

 

And it hurt. 

It hurt so, so badly to think that there might be someone out there who thought of me like this. Someone that had been etched away with the marker of a car screeching to a halt. Someone that, in the three days I’d been so happy, might have cried themselves to sleep, wondering why I’d not returned from the library one day.

Where have I gone?


	5. Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon

I wasn’t getting better fast, but I sure as hell wasn’t getting worse.

 

The first morning was the worst, with me jumping up from bed and screaming. Nightmares gripped my sleep but faded fast. I did remember the dreams having a lot of Dan screaming, sounding all too real. I hated waking up in the morning and feeling the emotional drainage of broken sleep and torturous dreams that I couldn’t even recall.

The worst nightmares resulted in Dan running out of his room, terrified. He’d calm me down as fast as he could, holding me to him and asking me questions.

 

_“Are you okay?”_ He’d ask.

_“I don’t know.”_ I hated that that was my answer most of the time.

_“That’s fine. Where are you right now?”_

_“Home.”_

 

That was my favorite question. I liked hearing the word _“Home”_ roll off my tongue, falling off my lips and into the air. There was also the fact that the meaning of the question had been lost, as now I never knew if what he meant by it was “Where do you feel you are?”, or “Where’s your mind gone?”. Dan would hum in approval, and carefully trace his fingers over my back. Out of all the things we had found out about me, that was my favorite; the fact that I loved people touching my skin with light and feathery touches, and the fact that I called it “tickling my back”.

We also found out that I hated root beer. That was strange, to say the least. The smell of the cold bit at my nose, enticing me, but as soon as I took a sip, I spit it out into the sink and started cursing with Dan laughing at my rage against the syrupy bubbled drink.

What he didn’t know, was that I poured the rest of the bottle out into the sink after that, too.

I ended up eventually meeting all of Dan’s friends. I took an affinity to Arin and Suzy. With his tawny hair and blonde streak, he was funny. He was obviously a good friend to Dan, and I’d noticed after a goodbye hug that, one, I loved hugs, and two, his were enveloping and warm.

Suzy, a beautiful woman with a great sense of fashion just as Dan had told me, gave hugs that felt more like a favorite coat. Soft, yet not all-encompassing. She always had a very floral scent to her, and most of her just made me feel happy.

Meeting Ross and Holly was… An event. Ross actually ended up chugging a glass of milk while making half-assed conversation. After that, he took the closest thing to a nap you could do while still being conscious.

Holly apologized on his behalf. Apparently, he’d stayed up late streaming animation, and was not ready to take on the world at the moment. She smelled strongly of animal, and when I asked her about it, she went into an in-depth conversation about her rescued pigeons. She loved them like family.

I really loved her hair, as well. She had the sweetest laugh, and when she talked about Ross or her pigeons or her job, I could feel that she really, truly loved them. Even though I had stayed with Dan, one of the happiest and most loving people I knew, it wasn’t the same. I had never seen someone who loved so much. She gave me a lot of comfortable clothes, things like sweaters and t-shirts that were a little too big for me.

Meeting Brian was really fun. When my leg was well enough for me to limp without collapsing, we decided to finally start getting as much exercise as I could. Our first trip was to Brian’s house, where Brian was playing with his two-year-old kid, Audrey.

Brian made a lot of jokes, and his voice was soothing in weird, nasally way. Audrey was fun, too. She had acted a lot like her father, making jokes along a similar line as him. She was much cuter, though. And didn’t have a dirty and suggestive mouth.

Barry and I got closer, too. He liked to make tea for us so we could just talk, which helped me find out that I liked tea as bitter as it could be. I would sometimes still jump when he came into the room, but I hadn’t blacked out and screamed ever since, so that must have been good.

We did a lot to find out why that happened, too. After all, if we knew why it happened in the first place, we could stop it from happening again, right? Fortunately, it hadn’t. Things had been normal for the most part over the last few weeks.

I tried to ask if we could go to the library, but after the situation with Barry, we thought it might have been an association with a bad memory that made me freak out like I had. Dan said he thought that maybe we should wait before going there, because if that was the case, then the library might be a bad place to go. I knew that that place was important, and I needed to go there when I was stable enough to.

“I still think we should head there soon,” I said to Barry, clutching my tea cup for warmth. It may have been mid-May by now, but I still loved the feeling of heat at my fingertips, liking the idea of pulling heat out and holding it in the palm of my hand.

“I think I gotta side with Dan on this one, Rain,” Barry said around the rim of his mug. He took a small sip, then continued talking. “You don’t know what might happen. What if someone you know is there? They might try to convince you that they were like, your boyfriend or something and then kidnap you.” He looked at the window, imagining the scenario with a worried expression.

“People wouldn’t do that…” _Right?_ “Plus, no one would know I have amnesia.”

“Yeah, but what if it was like, your mom or something? And they run up and hug you and then you end up getting the cops calling on you for punching your mom? That’d suck!” I laughed, glad that we were making light of the topic. Serious conversations had gotten harder over the past few days, but thankfully I was with a group of people that make jokes for a living.

“I doubt that would happen,” I started, but Barry finished.

“But it’s happened to people before! All those Hollywood movies with people who have amnesia and then they meet someone they knew and they hit them in the gut.” Barry dramatically flung his arms around after putting down his mug, making me smile and laugh more.

But it still made me thoughtful. What happened to my mom? Over the week, I had remembered how old I was - 34 years old, and I only remembered the month I was born in and not the date - but I hadn’t remembered anything about my family. A few snapshots of high school and college, but nothing more. Not even friends.

It hadn’t bothered me. Maybe I was more of the isolated type, a lone wolf of sorts. Maybe I had a boring family, and that’s why I hadn’t remembered them yet.

By now, the white sunlight on the walls had turned yellow. The evening was always the best time for tea. My tea was at the perfect temperature for drinking, too. Not so hot that it burned your throat, but not so cold that it didn’t warm you to the bone, all the way to your soul.

“I wouldn’t let them steal you away, though. It’s good that you’re around. I have the feeling Danny likes having you around, too, especially after that day with Sam.” Barry’s face had turned somber, looking out of the window where the yellow sunlight came pouring in. I looked at him, searching my memory for the name. I had called Danny it sometimes when my memories became really blurred, but I didn’t remember actually talking about a person named that.

“Have we talked about them before? Have I met them and forgot?” I asked. Barry looked at me surprised for a minute, then sighed, realizing something.

“Sometimes I forget you weren’t here before her. You’re actually really similar. She was Danny’s friend, who moved here with him from New York. She made a room in the attic, and they started dating after a while, so they slept together up there.” He explained, his voice low. He looked into his mug with the same somber expression he had moments earlier. I looked at him curiously.

“What happened?” It was a question I had been asking a lot, I realized. I suppose it was justified, though.

“A lot. A lot of things happened.” Barry said, his voice barely above a whisper as he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He opened them again, looking back out the window. “She left a lot behind, and Danny’s doing his best to clean up that mess, but… It’s a lot for one person to do.” Then, surprisingly, he smiled. “I was really close with her. We used to have days like these, actually. She’d make tea, and we’d sit here and talk. Like I said, you’re really similar. She was really quiet, but there was a lot going on in her head. She was the type of person who, when they talked, you could tell it was important. We all really miss her.”

I looked at Barry as he smiled out at the window. I didn’t want to push him into talking about anything that he didn’t want to, but something inside of me knew she was important. I sipped my tea, letting the bitter heat travel down my throat as I thought. I could almost feel the fuzzy image in my head of this girl. “Dan’s okay, right? I won’t ask what happened to her, but it sounds like he was really attached.” I asked.

But Barry just kept looking out the window, his smile having faded. Now the sunlight had gone from yellow to orange, bathing the room in the evening light, setting fire to the mirror-like walls. It was silent for a few more minutes.

“Is Dan okay?” I asked more firmly this time. Barry didn’t look at me, but he spoke.

“I honestly don’t know.”

 

The rest of the day went normally, as much as it could have. Dan didn’t come home until very late, and I could tell that, in whatever he recorded in the long stretches of time he was gone, he must have been drunk off of sleep deprivation today.

I had been sitting on the couch, a beautifully written book called _“Everything, Everything”_ laid out in front of me. It was immediate when I saw the book that it was my favorite, from the jump in my heart to the smile on my face. Even as I read, I felt this thrill running through my veins. I knew what was going to happen, but every syllable that went through my mind still filled me with glee.

On days like these, where Dan came home emotionally and physically exhausted, he usually came in and went straight to bed. Maybe he’d give a short grunt as a hello to me or Barry. He’d never done what he did that day, though.

He sat down on the couch next to me, and right next to where I had found myself tucked into the soft folds of a blanket, Dan was there. I looked at him curiously, but he had closed his eyes. He had the look on his face of someone who was in that middle stage of falling asleep, where if they realized they were falling asleep, they’d jump with a pounding heart for no reason.

“Hmm?” The hum that I murmured was a question, though not stated as such. _“What’s up?”_ Dan did exactly as I expected, his eyes flying open as he suddenly breathed in a big gulp of air. I smiled at him.

But he just closed his eyes again and curled into my side, mumbling. “Things. You cool with this? Me just…” His voice was stained with tiredness as his sentence trailed off. He just wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into him like I was a teddy bear. “Just sleepin’ like this…” He finished his sentence, and that was when I realized how warm he was. Maybe it was because he was wearing a leather jacket and a beanie indoors, or maybe it was because he was just warm in general.

I grabbed the sticky note from in between pages I’d passed in my book, putting it down on my current page with a corner sticking out. I closed it, letting the book tumble to the floor as I drew myself as close to Dan as I could be. I hadn’t realized just how tired I’d gotten, but now that I closed my eyes and stopped reading, I felt sleep hit me like a wave.

Dan repositioned himself so that it was less of him being tucked into my side, and more of me in his. He held me so fondly, like I was a precious porcelain doll that would break if he held it wrong. Everything started to feel fuzzy around the edges, like the world was fading out around me. I breathed in, drowning in the scent that Dan always had.

Words floated around my head, Words that were, for once, not garbled and mixed up. The words of a writer named Nicola Yoon, a woman who truly and wholeheartedly believed in true love. A woman I could see standing in the hall of fame someday.

But what to say? I had all the perfect words in my head, sentences that would be perfect to show how thankful I am that this stranger took me in as a member of his family. But none of them were perfect enough.

I had to settle, though. I had to find second best for now. Maybe third or fourth best if second wasn’t available.

But then the words found me. Though I had been the one searching, they found me. These words fit so perfectly in my mind at the moment, as I sat enveloped by Dan. But I didn’t risk saying them. This moment was too perfect to paint over with words. I could lie and say that I said these words to him. But I won’t because the truth is so much better.

But I did imagine it. I thought about how Dan might react if I were to murmur these simple words to him.

 

_“How am I supposed to go back to my old life, my days stretching out before me with unending and brutal sameness? How am I supposed to go back to being The Girl Who Reads?”_

 

But he did not kiss the crown of my head comfortingly. He did not say “I won’t let that happen,” like I wished he could have. He snored softly, bathing in the silence I had left.

And suddenly, silence had never been a more beautiful thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with a new, sweet, fluffy chapter! Don't worry, it only goes down from here. Anyways, personal life things are happening at the moment, and writing has been a bit of a struggle for me. I did manage to get out of that pit, though, and pump out a new chapter. I'm doing okay, and that's the best I can ask for. 
> 
> _Aaaaaaaaand_ I can ask for comments! I always love them, and always respond, so please don't hesitate to comment or message me through my Gmail axolotlnerdao3@gmail.com! I love you all, and thank you so much for reading!


	6. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

The morning was a very strange affair, but still welcomed. When consciousness first started gripping me, I came to the realization that my sleep hadn’t been disturbed by nightmares. This had happened once or twice, but only if I had been so exhausted that I couldn’t even bare to keep my eyes open. I breathed in deeply, enjoying the smell that I found myself buried in while waking up.

Warmth still cradled me, making me wonder if I should sleep longer. I sighed lightly, knowing that I had to get up eventually, and sooner was probably better than later. I blinked open my eyes, finding that I had been leaning on the faded colors of a blue  _ “Rush” _ t-shirt. The memories of Dan returning home came back easily, making me smile into the fabric I leaned on. 

“You awake?” Dan asked, his voice stained with sleep, just like it had been last night. A thought suddenly struck me, making me wonder.  _ What does he sound like singing? _

“No,” I murmured. Dan laughed, his chest vibrating and making me laugh too. Now it was definitely too late to go back to sleep. I pulled back, feeling Dan’s arms limply fall off as I stretched. “Who’s making breakfast today?” 

Dan shrugged. “How about we make pancakes together? I don’t have anywhere to be today , thank God.” He said, smiling. I hummed in agreement, knowing that no day ever will or could have ever started off better than this one had. 

 

Pancakes were quite the adventure. After struggling around crutches, half-open cabinets, and lots of flour, we ended up finally finishing the batter. The first two pancakes ended up becoming scrambled messes of what they could have been, but Dan still decided to eat the pieces of it from a tupperware like it was a bowl. 

The next few were better, but ended up fairly burnt due to the fact that we started getting into an in depth conversation about  _ Everything, Everything. _ I gushed about how amazing the writing was, and how I loved the additions of drawings and pictures and everything about the book. Dan just stood there, smiling for a long minute before I asked him about it. Clearly he knew something that I didn’t.

“The movie comes out in May.” He said simply. I must have made the most wondrous, amazed face after he said this, because his face lit up as he laughed at my reaction.

As if on cue, I breathed in and we both made a realization. 

“Pancakes!” I exclaimed, turning around to the burning pancakes on the stove and laughing as we frantically flipped the half-done (mostly burnt) ones and put the fully burned ones on a plate. Again, we started talking just about books in general, about some of our favorites and least favorites. Books we hate to love, and love to hate. Somehow, even through his love of fantasy and sci-fi novels, he had never read Harry Potter, which I gave him a good scolding for. 

When we finally made pancakes that weren’t broken to pieces or burnt to hell, we made tea and sat down at the small table I had sat with Barry the previous day. Still, we talked, and somehow the conversation never faltered. We kept laughing and talking, almost as if the whole world wasn’t breathing around us. 

 

** SOMETHING STRANGE I NOTED WHILE TALKING **

Dan couldn’t look straight at me 

for longer than 20 seconds.

 

Yes, I counted. He would look at me with different expressions. Happiness when talking about music, fondness when talking about family, beaming when he talked about his job, but he was someone else when he listened. He would look at me as I spoke for a moment, but sometimes caught himself staring and looked away at the window that had cast that beautiful sunlight yesterday. He would sometimes jump at a thought he had, cursing himself for something that I could tell was personal.

I didn’t take it personally. It seemed clear that this was him thinking about something that he left unsaid, something he clearly didn’t want to say. But every single time he looked at me and then was struck by a feeling that made him turn away, I felt that something was wrong.

It was a kind of funny thought, actually. I had wanted to turn Dan’s phrase on him, ask him. “What happened?” It was a kind of theme, it seemed to me. With all the mystery of my past, “What happened” was kind of the question we were trying to answer. 

After an hour and a half of talking (I had thought time hadn’t moved an inch), we decided to spend the rest of our day reading. With no responsibilities for one day, we might as well search, and the books were our only clue at the moment. 

Dan pulled out the box of books that he had brought to the hospital all that time ago. It felt almost like a dream, those couple of days. I looked through the books, again feeling that giddy feeling like a high schooler newly in love. Every time I saw a book that I remembered, my face lit up, and every time I looked that happy, Dan did too.

After some more searching, we finally found one we both wanted to read; The Book Thief. I didn’t recall ever reading it, but I did remember wanting to. Since we only had one copy, we decided we’d do the same thing we did in the hospital, but take turns instead, chapter by chapter.

We set up the couch like a fort, pillows and blankets every where. Somewhere in the pile were drinks, things like iced tea and soda buried under our castle of blankets. After situating ourselves next to each other and flipping open the book, Dan started reading the words with a voice that I swore I could listen to forever. My eyes followed along, and I could feel some part of my soul stirring as I read along, the words crawling along my consciousness with some sort of purpose.

As we switched off reading, I found my focus drifting. I would start staring blankly at the page, no longer reading but just… Fuzzy. That’s the only way I could ever think to describe it. No sound came to my ears, nothing I saw was in front of me, and the whole world felt still. 

Dan noticed, too. He could tell, somehow, from the way that my eyes would trail off, and my smile would fade and falter. He would tap me on the shoulder and break me from my daydreaming, laughing when I murmured “Wait, what page were we on…?”.

But something must have shifted, because one moment I was reading my chapter, and the next, I was in a world mixed with static, words that blurred at the edges and sound that came through a water-like filter. 

 

_ I think it was sometime late in December, because I was getting that giddy feeling I always got around the holidays. A childlike sense of glee always filled me, because everyone was always happy. No one wanted more than they had, even for a brief moment. People were satisfied.  _

_ But I didn’t want anything that I didn’t already have. Not now, not for months before, and hopefully, not for months afterwards. It was that weird pause of time where everything was just fine. Not particularly great, but okay enough for you not to complain. _

_ Well, that was kind of a lie. There was one thing I wanted, one thing that I may have loved even more than the books I had been holding onto so dearly - Theater.  _

_ It was freedom, solid and pure. It was a reason to hold your head up high, speak with conviction and be the hero of whatever story you wanted. It was feeling the happiness of the girl just reunited with her brother. It was feeling her sadness as she watched him turn into a greedy loner with a hatred for the holidays. It was feeling her regret that she didn’t try harder as she lay on her deathbed.  _

_ It was everything that people hated happening in real life. They hated drama, the thrill of conflict, battling monsters real and in your head. They didn’t want people being special, called out for a story they could be either the villain or the hero of.  _

_ I liked to believe that people didn’t like it because they had all too often been the antagonist. We all had, hadn’t we? We’ve all hurt someone, somehow. We may not always have known it. Maybe there was someone who hated the fact that you were so calm, because they couldn’t hold in their emotions the same way, no matter how hard they tried. Or maybe you hate that person because they know how to get what they want, because they somehow made life their bitch when you only knew how to comply. _

_ There’s nothing wrong with being the villain, though. Every story ends with a lesson learned, and every story begins with a bad guy to fight. How else could you possibly explain the importance of creativity to your peers? How in all of the world could I express how important it is to be happy? _

_ That’s the problem with my love of reading. No amount of words or books could ever show how crucial it is to be Human. To love and be loved in return. No mass-produced textbook could tell you how to feel, and no stolen diary could tell you what love and respect and trust actually feels like. Try all you want. You can’t explain certain things, and sometimes you have to be okay with that. _

_ Maybe that’s what I was doing with all of my writing. My hands were never empty, always a book or pad of sticky notes or pencil or pen being held. I never planned on sharing what I had written, though, that was the difference between me and an author.  _

_ I did a lot of writing, though. There was one book - a very special one - that I never let leave my side. I would never let people touch it, no matter who it was. Especially family. These thoughts were mine, and mine alone.  _

_ Someone once asked me why I would never share these writings. They had read nothing but a single paragraph of me rambling, but suddenly wanted more. They asked why they couldn’t read it, and I replied the way I would have written it.  _

_ People didn’t need to know my thoughts. People didn’t need to see the world through my eyes; they have their own. I knew that I was a thoughtful, introspective, artistic person, and isn’t that enough?  _

_ But that loops back to theater. Writing just sometimes isn’t a strong enough outlet. Sometimes, it just doesn’t keep you busy enough. There just sometimes is too much technicality. Especially when you’re an emotional teenager in high school.  _

_ So I auditioned for the play.  _ Anything Goes, _ it was called. It was a musical about these two childhood friends, one of which only recently found out they were in love with the other. She tried to court him, but he was wrapped up in affection for another woman. I think there was a lot more to the story, but I must have forgotten it. _

_ The audition didn’t turn out so well. I didn’t get a part, even though I thought I was good enough for a part. I didn’t take it personally, though I was very upset. I stayed calm, though. There was also the chorus, which I could join. There were no auditions for it, and it was just a group of backup actors for minor roles. There weren’t a limited amount of spots either, so I had to be accepted, right? _

_ Wrong.  _

_ I got to the auditorium, sitting down and waiting for whatever was supposed to happen. I held my books to my chest with one arm, and the other was running over the velvety fabric on the seats. Like peach fuzz.  _

_ So people filed in, talking with friends loudly and rowdily. No one scolded them for being so loud. Nothing had started yet, after all. _

_ But I was so, so out of place. I sat in the back of the room as people hugged their friends, laughing and smiling. I was a rose in a field of tulips, similar until you saw how people crowded around everyone but me. Like I had thorns stuck out of my body, bending me away from them. _

_ Soon enough, people all got on the stage, following the teacher’s instruction. I didn’t move, though. Just stared at the people as they talked. A crushing realization reached me as I sat in that seat, making my heart curl up and cry where I couldn’t.  _

I don’t belong here.

_ So I simply stood up and left, books still held against my chest as I thought. How could that possibly be true? I knew it had to be, I could tell from the way that everyone laughed while I watched. How could I possibly be able to just sit there and watch other people’s happiness as mine flew out the window? I must not have been human, if that was the case. I must have been some strange breed of psychopath, born not to feel, but to think and think and think and then end up having overthought everything. _

_ And I ended up outside the school. I ended up sitting on a bench outside of school, looking down at the now filled pages of a journal that was so precious to me. They had been empty only a few short moments ago. But I had filled them with the heartbreak of being cast off from the only place I thought I would fit in. _

_ The bitter scent of cigarette smoke filled my nose, threatening to choke me. Words filled my mind once again, but right as I was tempted to start writing them, something stopped me. _

_ “Hey.” A voice. Someone actually talking, someone hopefully talking to me. What were they doing? Didn’t they know that I must have been some sort of ticking time bomb?  _

_ I still looked to them, though. Their face was blurred, hidden from my memory. They murmured something around the lines of “Jesus,” because I realized I must have looked like a mess. Though I hadn’t cried yet, tears hung loose around my eyes. I felt startled and scared, misplaced.  _

_ They rolled their eyes, and I could feel that they were conflicted. A mix of pity, relief, and sympathy. He held a cigarette in between two of his fingers, holding it out to me.  _

_ “Wanna smoke?” _

 

Then, suddenly, I was back, staring at  _ The Book Thief _ with ringing sounding out through my head _. _ I wasn’t a sophomore in high school, dejected and miserable. I was me, and suddenly there were answers.

One: I was  _ not _ an empty shell of who I was. If anything, I was more Me than ever.

Two: There was at least one person out there that cared. Someone other than Dan or Arin or Barry. There was someone that knew me. Someone that smoked.

Three: High school was the worst.

When I realized that the memory wasn’t fading, my heart pounded in my chest. This wasn’t one of the few flashes of emotion that had come back. This was a full painting, not just a polaroid of something that I had lost a long time ago.

My vision focused to see the book in front of me.

_ “When you’re young, you think everything you do is disposable. You move from now to now, crumpling up time in your hands, tossing it away. You’re your own speeding car. You think you can get rid of things, and people too - leave them behind. You don’t know about the habit they have, of coming back. _

_ Time in dreams is frozen. You can never get away from where you’ve been.” _

I turned to see Dan looking at me with confusion and concern, an expression he wore too well. His face begged the same question we’d been asking from the beginning. “What happened?” it asked.

“I remembered something very,  _ very _ important.”


	7. Wonder - Raquel J. Palacio

It was odd at first. Holding someone again. She fit so perfectly next to me that I immediately had to ask myself where it went wrong. How could someone other than Her be that easy to be around? It should have been simple, and as a man drawing closer and closer to his 40’s, I should have learned better than to assume that someone like that wouldn’t be back. 

Sure, Arin was easy to be around. But it was different. I had known Her so much longer. She knew so much that I would never be able to say out loud. Arin knew what I meant, and knew I didn’t blame him for not understanding. Some things just can’t be explained. 

Barry had some better clues. He had heard the effects of everything night after night, and though I told him to stop checking in on me, he never did. He knew something was wrong, but he didn’t risk talking about it.

I don’t know if I wanted to talk about it. I’m completely sure that if I said I wanted to talk about Her to Arin or Barry or Suzy or anyone, they gladly would have. The fact that they  _ had _ talked about it was the problem. When I was still too early in the stages of grief to think straight, they talked and found their way through it. 

I didn’t want to bring it up. Not at all. Out of all the shit that has happened in my life, grief was the worst. It was silent torture, and everyone went through it. No one could sympathise with you, though, because no one ever goes through  _ your _ grief. They go through theirs. When they say “I know how you feel,” it only ever makes it feel worse because  _ No, you absolutely fucking do not. _ You never had to see what I did, so don’t try to tell me you understand. I swear that you don’t. 

I didn’t want to bring it up. They would all say they understood, because they had been there too and had to go through the same loss that I had. But they were not there. Not in the same way I was. They hadn’t seen the same deterioration that I had, they hadn’t been left with that letter. 

I didn’t want to bring it up. They had passed through their grief. They powered through it already, and I would not let anyone bury themselves in the same hole I must have dug for myself all those years ago. If I was going down, I’d have to do it alone. 

Right?

 

But then Barry talked to me one day. He said something I didn’t expect to hear. Not for a long time. I hadn’t expected someone to be so understanding of it. 

“I know you really don’t want Rain to know, but she deserves to. I told her a bit about Sam.” He confided. He had the face of a kid that just said “It was  _ me _ that broke the window”. I hadn’t heard Her name out of anyone else's mouth in so long, I had almost forgotten it was more than a name. It was the embodiment of everything I had loved in someone, it was everything she said and wrote, it was her, smiling again. Somehow smiling again. 

Sam. 

So I nodded. “No, it’s cool. I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about it anyways.” I admitted. I still didn’t say her name, though. I was afraid if I said her name, it would leave. Like it was all I had left of her. I still had her books, though. I still had her note. 

 

_ “Sam,” _ I muttered to myself, the book in my lap laid upside down, forgotten momentarily. Another sleepless night I had gone through, so I started reading, and when reading failed me, I started saying her name again. 

My fingers barely brushed against my lips as I said it, feeling the skin shape the words. It was still nothing compared to how she could do it. I whispered the word again, my heart aching as I remembered the first time she said her name to me. So long ago. 

The word didn’t fit on my lips. It was too small, bending awkwardly just to be there. It was too big, baggy and revealing and falling over itself. I couldn’t say it the right way. I couldn’t embody her the way that she was, because a name couldn’t tell you how beautiful she was when she smiled and how broken she must have been to stop. 

But I couldn’t keep her name that close to me anymore. It was not a precious secret, and I needed to say her name again. Needed to hear it. Even if it was cut off, not nearly as wonderful as her. My grief had taken hold for too long, now. I desperately wanted to heal, but how could I, holding on this tightly?

So I said it again, letting the word be an unraveling oxymoron as it fell from my tongue once again. I hadn’t even wanted to say it since  _ Before _ .  _ “Sam,” _ I whispered. My heart physically ached, scratching at my chest. 

And suddenly, I could understand why Sam, or anyone, would  _ want _ to hurt themselves. 

 

The next day was so much more peaceful. Rain had slept like a baby, waking up without being as dazed and confused as she normally was. She was her. 

Ever since Sam, I’d been thinking a lot more. Not just about her, but looking further into what I saw. Looking beyond the eye, into the art that she had seen in people. I had a feeling Rain did this too, and it was something I admired. Not everyone could so clearly look past what they see, into the wholeness of other people’s souls. 

When I looked at Rain, I saw a lot of things that I wondered if she thought about. I wonder if she knew that when she stared off into the distance, she looked so at peace that I expected her to become a statue. I almost felt as if, sometimes, I could touch her skin and it would be cold as marble with eyes of stone. I wished I had the same artistic talent that Ross or Arin had so I could at least try to convey in the same way how content she looked while she stared at the pages of books. 

She rarely ever looked truly blissful or happy while reading; just content. Like this spot was okay, and she didn’t need to move or be somewhere else or be doing something else because this was good. She didn’t need anything else because this small corner of the couch was good enough for her. 

I was sure she thought she was taking up more space than she was. She’d often be as small as possible, taking as little space as she could for the fear of being in the way. She didn’t realize that her being here wasn’t a pain, it was like an old friend visiting for the first time in a long time. She couldn’t exactly cook or clean and she hated that, but I didn’t care. She didn’t need to do any of those things to be a good person to be around.

She got frustrated with herself too easily. When her shaken brain got out of place and filled her mouth with cobwebs, she beat herself up over it, looking into her lap or at the ground with furrowed eyebrows and a tight lipped mouth. I always made sure to comfort her, though. Tell her it was fine and to take her time to form the words she needed to.

I really enjoyed her company. I really wanted to. I loved talking to her, and reading with her, and drinking tea with her, and all the things I had done with Sam. Making pancakes was fun, and the joy on her face when I told her about the  _ “Everything, Everything” _ movie was an expression I never wanted to see off her face. 

Happiness was perfect for her.

 

And soon enough, it was night again. After Rain had remembered her “very,  _ very, _ important” memory, she said she needed some time to think and concentrate. I understood, not wanting to push her to talk about what she had remembered. Things like memories were the hardest for her mouth to form the words to talk about, and I hated seeing her so upset with herself when her brain started acting up. 

So I sat in bed, holding  _ The Book Thief  _ in my hands, sleep once again avoiding me. I thought maybe reading would help, but I didn’t want to finish the book without Rain. 

I don’t know what made me decide to do so, but soon enough, I was opening the hatch to let down the ladder that opened the attic. It squealed, making me slow down and turn towards the couch where Rain laid down, an open book in her lap as she slept. She didn’t turn, so she must have fallen asleep in that position. I carefully set down the ladder, walking up the creaking wooden steps.

Sam’s room.

The silver-blue blanket still sat undisturbed on the bed, along with the half empty bookshelf. The note sat still as well, the envelope now starting to yellow with age. I almost wanted to open it, as the one page separating me from the last piece of Sam must have been so easy to rip open, giving me the one answer I was looking for.

But I didn’t want that piece to leave. So I left the note sitting on the nightstand, left to be discovered some other day. 

I walked up to the bureau that had towered above Sam’s head when she used it. I was the perfect height to look at the stereo on top, one that had never been plugged in or used, but more of a decoration. I tapped it, as if it wouldn’t just click as my fingertip tapped the plastic, as if it would show me how late it had gotten and how badly I needed to be sleeping.

Something I hadn’t noticed about my health was my weight. I had just always been thin, and gaining weight was always a problem, but at the time I hadn’t noticed how bad  _ everything _ had gotten. I had never been  _ that _ thin. The thought just never occurred to me that maybe I was doing something wrong. Like forgetting to eat full meals while forgetting to get full night’s sleep while forgetting to stop separating myself from Sam. 

I should have tried harder, shouldn’t I? You so easily forget to take care of yourself when you're so busy thinking of other people. Even when they’re long gone. I was a prime example of what you call a “bad survivor”. 

 

As a note from a future me, not the one that was standing there wondering how I’d gone wrong and struggling to come to terms, you have a right to be a “bad survivor”. You have a right to come out of trauma meaner or uglier or more reclusive or even self-hating. Being a “bad survivor” does not change the fact that you are feeling what you are feeling. Grow claws and fangs, hold grudges ‘till your grave, never forgive and never forget if that’s what you need. 

Someday you’ll be better, regardless of how good of a survivor you were. Of course, if you’re given the choice, always pick being a “good survivor”. Being better for longer is always your best bet, but if that’s not an option, don’t be upset and don’t think you’re doing it “wrong”. 

The truth is,  _ not everything happens for a reason. _ Sometimes people kill out of cold blood. Sometimes people stop smiling for no reason other than they don’t see the sun shining anymore. Sometimes people get the angriest at the people they love they most, and sometimes forgiving them can be hard. 

That doesn’t mean it won’t get better. 

 

But we have a story to tell, don’t we?

 

My real snap back to reality was when the bookshelf thumped and rattled, dust flying and a few books falling out of place and onto the floor. I gasped in surprise, immediately coughing due to the dust riddled air. I covered my mouth, letting the world fall silent as I listened. I just hoped I hadn’t woken anyone up, especially not Rain. If she found the attic, she would ask about it. About Sam.

When silence remained, unbroken by the sounds of any waking people, I moved, towards the fallen books. Two had hit the ground, one bright blue one near my feet. I picked it up, looking at the cover art, so simply moving with the word  _ “Wonder” _ written just over the portrait's eye.

I looked around the room once more, glancing at the note before walking back down the stairs. I looked back at Rain before closing myself in my room once again, leaving the sun to start creeping up the horizon as I flipped open the book, beginning to read again.

 

The next morning, I woke up to a soft knock on my door. I hadn’t even realized I had fallen asleep until then. I blinked, turning towards the door with a small hum. 

“It’s Rain. Can I come in?” She asked. 

I muttered a small “Yeah,” before hearing the door creak open. Rain had a small smile on her face and a plate of pancakes in her hands. I looked at her with tired surprise, wondering what made her think to do this. I sat up as she sat down near the foot of my bed, holding out the plate to me. 

“What’s this for?” I asked, smiling.

“My leg is good enough for me to really do stuff, so I thought I’d start trying to do my part around here.” She said, a small smile on her face. I looked at her surprised for a moment before she spoke again. “It’s probably not going to be nearly as good as yours, but the sentiment is there.” With the way she looked at her lap as she spoke, I wondered a few things.

Had I been too protective of her? She had seemed so out of it yesterday after her ‘episode’, but now she was sitting in front of me talking about how she was glad she could help around the house. She clearly must have learned how to get around problems while I wasn’t looking, and it made me wonder if I had been too protective, especially for someone who was basically a stranger to her. 

Did something happen to make her feel so obligated to help? I really didn’t mind her sitting there and reading. I really didn’t care about her crashing on the couch and borrowing books. Did she have a guilty conscience about staying here? Did she feel like she owed something to me? Or was this just the way she was?

_ Too many questions for this early. _ I decided, starting to eat the pancakes while talking about how I had just started reading  _ Wonder. _ Rain smiled, the book coming to her memory almost as soon as I mentioned it. She said it was one of the clearest memories she had, reading that book. 

“There are some really nice quotes in it. I should probably write a few down, just to look at them again.” I said, looking at the fallen book from the side of bed. 

_ “The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you.” _ Rain recited, the words rolling off her tongue with an ease that I knew she must have felt proud of. 

“You remembered that?” 

“Yeah! I thought of it as soon as you mentioned the book, I really like it.” I hummed in surprise, taking another bite of pancake as I thought. What could have sparked that memory so clearly?

No more questions. Not right now. 

 

Just pancakes and books.


	8. All The Bright Places - Jennifer Niven

The library was probably the most grand thing I’d seen in L.A. since I had arrived. The entrance was through an extremely large post office in an ancient looking stone building. The ceiling was at least 75 feet up, with marble of different colors creating designs all over the walls.

After going into the post office, you walk along the wall to find a stone staircase just as beautiful looking as the rest of the building. After 4 flights of stairs, you'd come to a set of green-painted wooden doors. Going through them was like finding Narnia in your closet, or going through the entrance to the world’s most colorful garden.

It was so clearly a place of inspiration. There’s no other way to explain it. It was so beautiful, so full, that there was no doubt that people came here for more than just the books.

Two people sat together at a small table, looking over papers and talking business. A lone man sat in a chair that was just one of a dozen in a circle around a coffee table with the local newspaper on it. A little girl and her mother sat in the middle of a rectangular indent on the floor that was surrounded with the children's books. A librarian sat behind her desk, gray hair curled to her shoulders and a pair of glasses low on her friendly face.

She had to be the one I was looking for. It was a strange sense of intuition that told me that she had an answer. The answer. A vital clue to find out what had happened. Not to me, but to Rain.

Still trying to take in the whole scene, I walked up to the woman. She looked up with a small smile on her face. “How can I help you, sir?” She said sweetly.

“Uh, are you… Annie? Annie Figueroa?” I asked quietly, her last name falling out of my mouth slowly, just to make sure I was saying it right. She looked up at me surprised, brown eyes tuned with confusion.

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Could I talk to you in private for a moment?”

“Yes, just give me a moment.” Her smile returned as she stood up, walking into the back room. She was gone for a very short amount of time before coming back through the door with a man following her, sitting down at her desk as she approached me. "Here, come sit in the back room with me."

I followed her, sitting down at a circular table in the room. "So, what is this about?" I took my phone out of my pocket, opening up the camera and showing Annie a picture I had snapped of Rain on the couch, reading as usual.

"You know this girl, right?" I asked. I immediately felt the air around her shift, as if a thought struck her that scared her. A thought that was very unwelcome.

"Yes, why?" She asked, her voice a little frantic.

"I... I found her about a month or two ago on the side of the road. She was hit by a car, and has amnesia." I wanted to say so much more. I wanted to explain how inspired she was by the books she read. I wanted to explain how her laugh was the nicest thing I had ever had the chance to hear. I wanted to explain how she had been the second chance I had been begging for. “She remembered you out of the blue one day, and I was hoping you could give us some answers.”

Annie had a look on her face that was a mix of relief, shock, and sadness. She looked around for a moment thinking before speaking again. “There’s quite a long story. Should I make us some tea? What’s your name?”

“I’m Dan, and tea sounds great. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa.” I said, smiling. Annie stood up, walking over to the Keurig as she spoke.

“Well, the kids call me Ms. Fig, but you can call me Annie.” She said. I could see why Rain would have been her friend; her voice was laced with silk, smooth and relaxing and friendly. She had the feeling surrounding her of motherly-ness.

“The kids?” I asked as she put a mug under the dispenser.

“Every Friday I host a kid’s read-along in the kiddie corner over there. There are a lot of kids that come every week, and they all call me Ms. Fig. It’s probably my favorite part of it.”

And then she said the few, simple words that told me Rain’s name. Just the few syllables explaining that’s how they met. I had been confused at first, the name being foreign to my mind, but when she explained that was her name, I felt the mystery return. I may have known who Rain was _now,_ but I was still clueless as to who she _was._

“What have you been calling her, if she doesn’t remember her name?” She asked, coming over with sugar packets, creamer, and two hot cups of tea.

“We call her Rain.” Annie closed her eyes, smiling as she sighed.

“That’s actually a perfect name.” She said fondly before starting her story. “When she was a kid, she came here with someone. I don’t think he was her father, he seemed more like the baby-sitter type. Maybe an older brother? I don’t know. Well, he had to come here to return a book when she was about thirteen. She was looking through all the titles, and I asked her if she was looking for anything.

“‘Yeah, kinda,’ she said. ‘I was wondering if you could recommend me to anything.’ I’ve never been one to know what the cool kids like to read, so I suggested _The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy._ Even though you’re technically not allowed to make a library card until you’re sixteen, I let her make one so she could check out the book.

“And the next friday, she had come back! She ran right up to me, ranting about how great the book was and that she absolutely _had_ to read the next one as soon as possible. So I told her where it would be, and she ran off to grab it as fast as she could.

“And that was her schedule. She would get someone to drive her here at _least_ once a week, usually twice. She somehow never ran out of things to read, constantly finding new books to fall in love with. We would actually sit back here and talk a lot, just like this. I would make tea, while she talked about the latest book she finished.

“At first, we just talked about the books. Then, slowly but surely, we got to know each other and talked about our personal lives. I grew to care for her as much as I would have my own child.”

I looked at Annie as she talked, and I could tell she was fond of Rain in a way that was so purely unique to her. Her face had turned to an almost somber expression as she finished, looking into her tea cup.

“That actually explains a lot.” I said simply, making the old woman look up to me confused. “The day after she was hit, I brought in a few books for her to read in the hospital. Apparently they were the only memories that she’d retained through the crash, other than a few small details. If she really liked them then as much as she does now, it’s not surprising she remembered them. It wasn’t long after that she remembered you.”

Annie looked at me like I had just told her that her child had come back from the dead. She smiled again and looked back into her teacup, eyes watering.

“When did you find her?” She asked, obviously doing her best to keep her breath steady. It was clear that she really missed Rain with the tone of her voice. I knew what missing someone was like all too well. I regretted the fact that I came here without her now that I’d seen how well she must have been cared for before this.

“Almost two months ago, now. I went for a drive early in the morning because I couldn’t sleep, and I found her. Called an ambulance immediately.” I explained. I carefully sipped at the tea, glad it was at the perfect temperature now that I’d waited.

“God, that’s…” Annie said through a sigh. She took one hand off of her mug to put on the table, leaving her head in her hands as she murmured. “That’s so fucked up,”

I muttered agreement, staring into my teacup like Annie had only moments ago. We both just sat like that for a while, thinking over the situation.

 

_“I… I was reading. Crossing the street…?” She practically whispered the words, sounding curious and confused as to why she was in a hospital bed._

_“Really?” It was odd; who would cross the highway in the middle of nowhere while reading a book? “You were crossing the highway and reading a book at the same time?”_

_“No, I don’t think I was on the highway. There was a crosswalk.”_

“When was the last time Rain was here?” I asked, the question striking me like lightning.

“Hmm… I think it was March 17th?” She mused, trying to answer the question. “Could I look at your calendar for a moment?” I handed her my phone, letting her look at the calendar. She looked at it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, March 17th. She would come on Fridays to read to the kids with me, it was sweet.” She said fondly. I would have smiled if I wasn’t coming to the realization I was.

“She checked out a book then? It was, uh… _This Song Will Save Your Life,_ right?”

“Yes. How did you know?” She asked, surprised. I couldn’t pull myself out of my thoughtfulness long enough to acknowledge it, though.

She had been clutching onto that book when I’d found her. She had been holding onto it like it was the only crutch she had. It was a library book, torn apart and stained with blood, and still, she gripped it so tight to her through everything she had been through.

“I… Wow, that’s…” I trailed off, unable to find the words I wanted to use. It was big, that was for sure. This had to have been the very last place she was before the accident. That would have explained why there was a crosswalk, and why she would have been reading while she crossed. Maybe she would have been so wrapped up in the book she forgot to pay attention.

“Well, I should be getting back to work now. It’s good to know Rain’s doing okay. Or, at least as well as she can be after getting hit by a car.” Annie joked as she sat up, somehow having finished her tea. “Thank you, Dan.”

“For what?”

“For putting my mind at ease. It has been almost two months now, hasn’t it? She used to come by every week. There… There was also a lot going on her life. It’s not my place to tell you what was happening, I barely even know anyways, but… You’re really a savior to her, you know. Not only did you save her life, you’ve given her a new one, and it seems like she’s happy.” She explained.

I looked at her surprised, her words touching. She spoke again.

“I probably sound really cheesy, but I don’t know how to express how grateful I am for you to be there for her. I’m stealing that nickname, by the way. Now, could you tell Rain that she left something the last time she was here?” She smiled as she took my cup.

After thanking her for talking to me, I left the library, feeling that I’d done something right.

 

The nightmares had always been the same of three things.

One: She would be standing there, staring at me. And I would want to walk up to her, but I knew if I was any closer to her, she would take me in her wake, making me just as obsolete as the black and nonexistent ground we stood upon.

Two: She’d be screaming. Loud and piercing, her voice shrill as she cried. The whole world would shake, and I would run to find her, trying to know why she was sobbing like she was. By the time I found her, it was her looking at me, seething as she said the phrase that had been haunting my dreams.

Three: She would chase me down. This one only came on the really bad nights. I would be having any other dream than her, and suddenly she’d scream my name and attack me, livid. I would start running and by the time the chase stopped, I’d been worn to the bone and felt sick to my stomach.

This one was new.

It started in the attic. That used to be the only spot that had been spared, but now… Yeah, definitely not. I was just sitting up there, on the bed. I could almost smell the dust in the room. I closed my eyes, trying to breath in more of the scent to pinpoint exactly what it was. I wanted to be able to describe it in detail as I had the aging fibers of a silver-blue blanket.

But the scent of dust was gone. Suddenly, the smell of blood tainted the air, metallic and nauseating. I opened my eyes, trying to find the source, and found myself screaming almost immediately after seeing what had surrounded me.

Blonde hair had been splattered with blood, probably because it now stained the walls and roof above, dripping down around me. She lied on the ground a bit away from the bed that I sat on, face down and clearly dead. She had to have been. She would have moved at my scream if she wasn’t.

Or maybe I just hadn’t yelled loud enough. Maybe I just hadn’t made any sound when I screamed, because soon she moved. She moved and her bloodstained face was now tilted towards me, blue eyes livid as she cried. Whether the tears that came out were made of water or blood, I couldn’t tell. All I know is that she looked terrifying as she twisted towards me.

She gripped onto an empty prescription bottle before, but in her rage, she smashed it to the ground, leaving orange shards of plastic to lay dormant under her hands. I backed up, covering up my mouth as I cried. She only seemed more livid at my tears, though.

 **_“Where were you?!”_ ** She screamed. Her voice couldn’t have been that loud before. It just couldn’t, because the entire world shook around her as she shrieked and I wept louder. I wish I could have closed my eyes, because when she tried to move closer to me, her movements were jerky and forced.

“I- I didn’t- Please, I never wanted…” I couldn’t finish a thought through my tears. This all had to be some terrible horror movie, right? Something inspired from when I played Resident Evil 7 with Arin. My mind just decided to use her face instead.

But then something softer called out. Something sweeter. A call that breached the barrier of my crazed mind. _“Dan?”_ It called. I blinked, and suddenly the whole scene was gone.

 

“Dan? Come on, wake up,” She called out to me. I jumped up, the dream still haunting me. I sighed and rubbed my face quickly, as if that would wipe away the look of terror still written on it. I looked over, and there was Rain, sitting there with a soft look of concern on her face.

“I- What are you doing?” I asked. Her reply was one of a soft sympathy. She had nightmares too, so she wasn’t the only one who would have broken sleep some nights. She had done this before, too. She would come into my room when nightmares shook me and she would shield me from them.

“You were crying in your sleep. I know that it happens sometimes, but I just wanted to make sure.” She said. I smiled for a moment, but it was clear she knew it was forced. She sighed and wrapped her arms around me, letting me put my face in the crook of her neck, letting the warmth sink in. “Come on, I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep. Chase away the bad dreams.” Her voice was something like honey, sweet and comforting and only needed in small doses.

“Please,” I said before laying down, still holding her.

But she knew something that I didn’t.

_“I know life well enough to know you can’t count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. You can’t stop people from dying. You can’t stop them from going away. You can’t stop yourself from going away either. I know myself well enough to know that no one else can keep you awake or keep you from sleeping.”_


	9. Asylum - Madeline Roux

I wish I could remember the first time I woke up and fully remembered everything that had happened the day prior. 

 

I wish I could remember the first time I really felt depressed as I laid on the couch. 

 

I wish I could remember the first time I told Dan how I felt, and how he comforted me with the simple and filling promise of all the cuddles I could ever ask for and that he was glad I was being open.

 

I wish I could remember the first time I heard muffled and restrained sobs coming in through the walls, feeling so helpless and desperate because this man had saved my life and sheltered me and fed me and I had done absolutely nothing in return. 

 

But I do remember the first time I found the strength within me to walk in there and hold him as he tried to contain himself. I held him with me as he cried, muttering incoherent words to himself about something he lost and he didn’t know how to help. He tried to calm down so desperately, just so he could talk to me and explain. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t keep his words coherent long enough to tell me what was happening. 

I do remember telling him that it was okay. I didn’t need to know, and someday, he would be able to tell me. Someday, when I’ve finally figured out who I am and I’ve got my life back in my own hands, he would be better as well. I told him that I would give him back all the cuddles he had promised me, and I hoped it filled him just as much as it had me.

I always knew something was wrong. The way he’d flinch any time I had accidentally called him Sam was a big pointer. And then the whole conversation with Barry about how they all really missed her, with no hint that She would be back. One of the big things was how he’d used the attic like a secret, going up there in the middle of the night when he thought I was sleeping. He’d done it enough times that I could picture it clearly in my head. 

It was a funny thought that I remembered the last nights better than Dan. The memory of them seemed to be fuzzy to him in the morning, like sleep had wiped it away with the palm of it’s hand, chalk on a blackboard. It was still there, but rubbed away and scattered. 

What could have been giving Dan such vivid nightmares? He always seemed like he felt out of place after them, put out or rejected. It seemed like his mind would become a floating beacon in a sea of the past, troubles that had wanted to be forgotten scratching up at the edges like waves that were desperate to find land. One must have crawled on board.

But I knew what it was like to be pushed to your edge. To be crying and have my words garbled and disconnected from myself. I didn’t want to push Dan any further than what he was at those nights. 

But those nights kept coming along. If I even mentioned anything about how I wished I could help, how I felt like I needed to work off my stay there, he’d end up having it fester inside of him. I knew it wasn’t his fault. 

And I tried to, every night that happened, comfort him into falling asleep. It must have been scary for him, because after the sniffles and sobs he would shake for a moment, recalling a memory that had been so vividly burned into his brain that it was now stamped on the back of his eyelids. 

“It’s okay. It’s going to be fine, I promise.” I would whisper. Some nights he would try to reply, saying either that it would never be okay again or that he knew but he couldn’t tell when it would be and that was the scary part. 

How long had he been in this dark place? How long had he been tangled up in this spot that flashed between sane and on the brink of insanity? How long has he needed someone that just couldn’t be there for him?

I wanted to be that person. I knew I couldn’t be, with my head the way that it was. I had bad days too, and if any those happened to fall on one of his, I wouldn’t be able to be there for him. If I wanted to repay him for anything, maybe just being there would be a good start. But I couldn’t.

But more than that, I wasn’t the person he needed. I wasn’t the person he so desperately needed, but if I could, by any means have been someone he could have relied on, I would have jumped at that chance as fast as humanly possible. 

 

I don’t really know how to word it, but that day, I was sort of… Restless. I woke up that morning, feeling in my bones that today I would do something. 

Dan said he would be out for the day running errands. So I hadn’t even had a plan and already it was coming together. Perfect. So I said that was fine and laid back on the couch, humming a tune that had suddenly come into my head. There were no lyrics that I could recall, but I did remember the sound of a keyboard, I think. The tone of a voice singing a song that I could barely recall. 

Dan looked at me for a second, a smile on his face. “You know U2?” He asked. 

“Nope!” I said cheerily, smiling with him. “Just came into my head.” He hummed a small laugh. 

“I’ll have to show you some of my music sometime. Some of the tame stuff, I mean.” He laughed. 

“You mean the stuff where you  _ don’t _ talk about your genitals?” We joked like that for a few more minutes before he had to go, leaving a quick farewell before leaving. 

I stayed on the couch for a moment before jumping up and waddling (that really is the best way I could describe my walking without crutches) over to the window that faced where Dan always parked, checking to make sure he’d gone. With music softly echoing from the car, he drove away. I sighed, part of me wondering if I should even do what I planned.

Maybe it was going a little too far? There was probably a reason he was hiding whatever he was from me. But what could be so bad? What could be so horrible that it bit at Dan every night? What could I ever do to help if I didn’t know what it was I needed to help protect him from?

I sighed, sitting back down on the couch and flipping open my book. A new one.

 

I jumped up from my spot, only now realizing a whole hour had passed. Reading was a bit hard, sometimes, as I was never sure if I had just  _ lost _ those minutes or spent them on the pages of whatever  book I was reading. I looked at the book for a second before glancing at the clock again. I cursed myself for letting this happen again. 

What would I find up there? Attics are always mysterious places, full of memories and words and ghosts of pasts that longed to be forgiven and forgotten. It was so bad, I knew. If Dan didn’t want me up there, I shouldn’t go. Right? But what if it doesn’t get better? What if this is a false sense of stability he seems to be using? What if there’s so much more I could do to help him that I couldn’t do if I didn’t take my chance now?

So I said fuck it.

 

The chain that dangled from the ceiling was almost too high to reach. Dan’s damned giraffe genes made it too easy. After a bit of work on my toes, a reached the metal loop with my index finger and pulled down the panel, grabbing the ladder and letting it squeak on the way down. 

It was a little scary, walking up the stairs. The wood seemed old and unsteady, but Dan had gotten up here plenty of times, right? I’d be fine. I made my way up, taking in the feeling of every nervous breath I took, every smell that came down from the space, every chill that ran down my spine and even the taste of my own mouth as I felt the ground even out beneath me.

When I reached the top, it felt like finding a magical place that had been just beneath my feet for years. Well, more like above my head, but still. It smelled just like Dan, like a book that had been coated with dust for a long time, but now it had a tinge of shampoo in there. A minty type of shampoo.

The air was cold and dry, but the sun that beamed through the single window was somehow able to spread heat more than half-way across the room. Being in there felt like being surrounded with fire and made of ice, the kind of mixture that makes the chill fight and trash and wreck everything in it’s path as it becomes a tornado. But maybe just a bit more peaceful. Like a silent storm. 

I walked over to the window, opening it in the hopes of letting in the warmer May breeze. The wind whistled lightly through the screen before calming down, deciding that the storm should come later. 

It was a small safe haven, if I could have made one. A bed with a soft, silver-blue blanket. A small bookshelf filled with all of my favorites. Sticky-notes on the walls with quotes and pretty sounding words and even small sketches.

Suddenly, the room felt softer. The battling cold and heat stopped, resting on a chill that felt more comforting than anything. It very well could have been my mind, but I swear the breeze felt almost unnatural as it ran over my body. 

I walked over to the memory wall, as I would come to call it. It had so many small things that felt like they had so much more behind them than just the part you saw. Small drawings of butterflies and other insects were always on the corner of each quoted sticky pad that was stuck to the wall. She wasn’t exactly an artist, but definitely not bad at drawing. It was her handwriting that I loved, though. 

I wanted to treat this place like a museum. A memory of the past that I couldn’t touch, no matter how badly I wanted to. But when the breeze knocked into me suddenly, making me gasp  and turn towards the window. I shuddered, wondering where this cold streak in the middle of May could have come from. I closed the window and turned back.

But the wind had moved something. Just one book’s pages had been wildly flipped and turned, it’s beaten and worn condition allowing it to stay open at one page. I glanced over at it, recognizing it as the same book I had been reading not too long ago. My mind focused on the words, processing only one sentence for a moment. 

_ “He was many things right now. And he felt like he was being pulled in a million conflicting directions.” _

And somehow, by whatever force that had opened the book in the first place, by whatever thing that had led me up here at all, the door downstairs creaked open and from it sounded out the voice that I knew so well. 

“Hey Rain, whatcha doin’?” Dan asked, peeking around the stairs. I was scared to death that he’d be mad or upset with me, but he just looked more curious than anything. I didn’t know what to say, though. I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d been worried and convinced myself to invade his privacy. But words found me quickly, though they didn’t feel like my own. 

“Just doing a bit of cleaning up.” I said, finding a smile. It was almost like someone else’s mouth was on my face, moving and speaking for me. I played along, picking up the book and putting it back on the shelf with the rest of them. I felt simultaneously proud and sick with my lie, glad that I didn’t have to have that emotional talk but almost nauseated by the fact I had just outright lied to him.

But he just shrugged and turned, heading off to his room without any more words. 

 

That night was bad.

I knew he had nightmares. I knew he would scream in his sleep from time to time, but I was a heavy sleeper and didn’t mind the few times it woke me up. 

It had never, not  _ once, _ been this bad. 

I hadn’t fallen asleep yet. I was still reading, trying to kill the guilt in my stomach before bed. Nervousness gives bad dreams, I think. So I lied down and buried myself in my book once more, though it would have been much better for calming my restlessness if it hadn’t been a horror novel. 

But then I heard sniffles coming from the other room. He sounded scared, guilty, all the things I had been the moment he had walked through the door this evening. He sounded pained, like heartache had broken through to his brain and seeped into his bones. 

Once again, confliction ran through me like chills. Would it be going too far if I woke him up? Just to check on him? Make sure he was okay?  _ No, _ I thought,  _ of course not.  _

So I walked in, finding that he was perfectly asleep while being tortured in his head. I shook him gently, speaking quietly. “Dan? Come on, wake up.”

I don’t know how, but we ended up just laying there on the bed together, looking at each other. I held him close to me, as if I could hold on tight enough and the whole world could freeze and just let it be this quiet forever. He kept looking amazingly thoughtful, lost in his own world of thought as everything moved around him. 

I traced my fingers along his sides, noticing the ribs through the fabric of his shirt that made my fingers moved in a curved pattern around him. I knew he was a thin person, but this felt wrong. He seemed practically starved, deprived of any good meals for weeks on end. I kept pulling my fingers over him, almost as if the dents in his skin were the space between pages, a thing to keep my hands busy while my mind painted the image of a story; The story of a woman, a man, and in their way, a bottle of sleeping pills. 

I looked back up to see Dan, who was looking at me somberly. His smile had turned into a soft frown, and his eyes were even more gently looking at me. He had an odd sort of affinity in his gaze, something that I don’t think a book could have described. He looked tired, but obviously could not sleep. The circles that lined the underside of his eyes were deceiving to how tense he was holding himself. If Dan had told me once, he would tell me again; He was fine. 

He always said that, but I knew it wasn’t true. I could tell from the way he looked at the attic’s trapdoor. I could tell from the way he held that note in his hands as tears softly fell onto it. I could tell from the way he looked at me with love, which only ever quickly turned into pain, regret, and almost even guilt. I could tell from the way he couldn’t eat a full meal. I could tell from the way he couldn’t get a full night’s sleep. I could tell from the way he couldn’t look me in the eyes without feeling physically pained. I could tell something had gone very,  _ very _ wrong. 

If there had ever been a time someone needed me, this was it. I could feel in my bones, down to the very core of my being that out of all the time I’ve been on this earth, this is the most I’ve ever been needed. I thought I wouldn’t know what to do if things came to this. I thought I would be just as lost and confused as when I first woke up in the bright hospital room. But I could feel it like a map had been laid out in front of me, etched onto Dan’s thin stomach and tired face.

“Dan,” I spoke softly, feeling my voice steady and soft. His brown eyes rested onto mine, and again, they couldn’t find peace. They flickered away, looking to the small stack of books behind me, then the window, then the air that sat between the two. 

“Danny,” I started again. He looked at me in the eyes with a fierceness of emotion that I hadn’t seen in him before. He looked so pained, so confused and ashamed. I carefully put a hand on his face, running my hand over the stubble that dotted his cheeks. 

“Yeah?” He said, just as soft as me. I could practically hear his thoughts echoing out.  _ “I don’t want to talk about this,” _ He looked at me. I couldn’t just let this be any longer, though. This conversation had been waiting on the edge for far too long, and holding it in much longer… Dan was already getting worse by the day. It wouldn’t get better by leaving it be longer. 

“What happened?” 


End file.
